The Hodaka Club Forum

OK, newb here! I've seen plenty of pictures of early Rats and restored ones as well. What side is the front brake hub supposed to reside on, right, left?

Right side. Check out the schematic for the 93 at this site: http://www.strictlyhodaka.com/

Duh! Thanks Bill, although I still see some folks have it on the wrong side.

They may have replaced the front fork assembly with another brand that had the cable connectors and brace connectors on the left, or there is a school of thought that the brake arm works better from the back side of the backing plate so who knows what they were trying to achieve.

While the "factory" position for the front brake backing plate is on the right side, the routing of the cable can be much improved by simply mounting things so the backing plate is on the left side. With the backing plate on the left, the cable has a more gentle bend to turn down to the hub. Since there is no speedometer drive to worry about on a Super Rat, this "bolt together" modification is easy to do -- and totally reversible. I doubt that any of us can actually "feel" any difference by doing this one thing only on the front brake system . . . but that is probably partly because most of us don't use the front brake much when the forks are working hard and forcing the cable bend to accommodate the movement.

So your decision is - Factory look? OR Best way for competition?

Ed

Thanks for the replies, I'll go for the factory look. As I get further into this project it is morphing into more of a "correct" restoration. Plenty more ?s to follow...............................D