I recently lubed my splines,and while installing everything I forgot to put that center spacer back in the hub and tightend it all down.I herd a pop inside like a deep metal thing,and the tire wouldnt rotate.Low and behold theres a metal spacer over there on the tool box and realized what I done,took it all apart and put it back together,everything seems fine.I adjusted the brake and went for a ride.During the ride I noticed that my back break wasnt catching until pushed way down(had to use my heel to push it far enough to get breaking force) but it worked fine..The extra travel needed to activate the brake seems to be inside the drum,I was planning to take off the lever at the drum and preload it a tooth or two and adjust until a very slight drag.What you think? P.S about how long will the rear brake last.

you may need to remove the wheel again to make sure everything on the brake is ok. You will also see how much wear there is left on your bake pads. On my 1995, with about 20k miles, there is still a lot of pad material left and I have been using it in stop and go traffic often.

Also, when you took off your wheel, did you notice how long the thread on the brake rod (part of the rear brake cable) was behind the adjusting nut? they can be tightend more.

The brake arm (on the drum) has a small arrow next to the pivot point which shows if your brakes need to be replaced. The arow is next to a lowered/recesed grove with text. Kind of hard to explain without pictures.

I was planning to take off the lever at the drum and preload it a tooth or two and adjust until a very slight drag.What you think? P.S about how long will the rear brake last.

You DON'T want to do that !
As Loran said, go by the marks on the arm & housing and adjust the nut.

I've put just about 26,000 mi. on mine (34,000 total on bike) and haven't changed them yet.

He He He. Sorry, I'm just reminiscing of a couple of weeks ago when I did the same thing. Except, I saw the mistake BEFORE I started crankin' on the nut.

Take it all apart again, see what you did. As Hyper said (that Loran said), DON'T change the position of the brake arm. It'll mess you up when doing a visual inspection of brake wear. Get on gYpSy's website (via the links) and pop an email off to her about brake wear. She's gone over 100K on her bike, so she should know when they'll need replacing.

Trying to think of what that pop was - could've been the swing arm cracking. (Possible, but not likely) Hopefully it wasn't anything bad...

I live a few miles south of you, maybe we can meet up sometime.

Ern.

Yea we can hook up some time if you want to.Any good rides down that way.He He He. Sorry, I'm just reminiscing of a couple of weeks ago when I did the same thing. Except, I saw the mistake BEFORE I started crankin' on the nut.

Take it all apart again, see what you did. As Hyper said (that Loran said), DON'T change the position of the brake arm. It'll mess you up when doing a visual inspection of brake wear. Get on gYpSy's website (via the links) and pop an email off to her about brake wear. She's gone over 100K on her bike, so she should know when they'll need replacing.

Trying to think of what that pop was - could've been the swing arm cracking. (Possible, but not likely) Hopefully it wasn't anything bad...

I live a few miles south of you, maybe we can meet up sometime.

Ern.