R80/7 Iron Disks - Pad replacement
 

When I bought my '79 Ex-police R80/7, it had recently been fitted with twin cast iron disks, which I now know to be a good thing!

What I was not prepared for was when I bought a new set of brake pads to fit the ATE calipers, I found that they were nearly impossible to fit as the disks seemed to be thicker than the steel originals.

Even with the pistons pushed back in as far as they would go, it was almost impossible to refit the calipers with the new set of pads.

Solution was simplicity itself ( although it took a wee while for the penny to drop!). All I had to do was fit a new pad inboard and an old pad outboard. Luckily, the old pads still had some life left in them.

At some later date, when the new pad has worn down a bit, I will replace the older pads with the new ones.

So there you have it, when replacing pads on airheads fitted with the thicker iron disks, you need to replace them one at a time so don't chuck the old pads away!

I'm sure that some of the 'old sweats' will know about this but I hope this post will be useful to someone.

Regards.
Ian

But more importantly, how much of an improvement are the brakes?