On The Bench - John Tickle RE brake plate

This is the type of thing that cafe racer lore is made of. I've wanted this brake for 10 years now, and while I've seen a few for sale over the years, I never had the money at the time to buy one. Luckily, this time around, the stars aligned and I had some cash saved up for something else that had fallen through. So when this one came up for sale out of the UK, I jumped at the chance for it.

For those that may not know, this is a twin leading shoe brake plate manufactured by John Tickle back in the 1960's. Made specifically to drop right in to the standard Norton drum brake hub with no modifications at all. The twin leading shoe literally doubled the stopping power of the stock Norton Dominator and Atlas single leading shoe brake. And with it's mesh vent cooling everything off, it helped greatly with brake fade.

This particular brake plate is in excellent shape. All of the components are in tact, and show almost no wear at all. It must have had a pretty easy life on whatever motorbike it serviced.

At the time of this photo, I hadn't done anything to the brake except to clean up the linkage arm and clips. They got a quick bath in the sonic tank, and turned out excellent. Completely clean, and showing a really cool goldish color plating to the clips.

Inside view, showing all of the original components. And that's all the way down to the original cap socket bolts for the retaining plates. Everything will get a quick clean in the sonic tank. Brake shoes will get a cleaning with the wire brush, and then treated to a new set of pads.

Detail shots of the front scoop covered in mesh. Pulling in enough air to keep things cool, and then passing hot air out the smaller vent scoop to the rear.

The brake plate will get all the little nicks lightly sanded out, and then the whole unit will get a thorough polish. I'll admit that I'm excited about this piece. All the other bits that I've been working to restore / rebuild, will have to be set aside while this thing gets my full attention.

I'm working on a more extensive post that will highlight John Tickle and some of the great aftermarket cafe racer parts he manufactured.