If you were having problems stopping before you got your wheels round and your bearings all in great working order, you’re really going to have problems now.  While you had your wheels off was the perfect time to give those wacky old brakes a good going over.  If your just going to check and possibly re-do you’re brakes, then you will have to take your wheels off.  If you have never done this before, refer back to the previous chapter if you need any help. 

   Brakes are a pretty big problem on the Dnepr, especially on the single wheel drive sidecar units.  The early sidecars didn’t have any brakes at all which leaves all of the work to the brakes on the motorcycle.  Dnepr front brakes are weak at the best of times, and if you have the older single arm single cam style of brake shoes they were pretty much non existent.  A lot of folks overfilled their final drive which tended to leak all over the rear brakes causing them to lose a lot of their stopping power whose main claim to fame was not being able to perform adequately.  As in other things, there is a cure, so read on.

While you have your wheels off the first thing you will want to check is your brake drums.  Dnepr brake drums are in the same state as the wheels.  Seldom straight, slightly over most of the time, and round only after somebody has taken the time and care to make them that way.  That guy didn’t work at the factory for very long and the person who replaced him really didn’t care.  First check for rust in your brake drum, especially, in your spare wheel.  If you find any rust you should sand it out using fine grit sandpaper or one of those sponge rubber sanding blocks with the abrasive surface built right onto it.  You can lightly sand your brake shoes with this pad as well.  First you should check your brake linings for excessive wear.  If the rivet heads are sticking up higher than the linings and you have grooves in your brake drums, then your way overdue for new brake shoe linings.  If you still have a bit of clearance between the rivet head and the lining you should be good to go.  If you have cracks in your linings you need to replace them.  If you are not sure how to check to see if your brake linings are giving you maximum stopping surface in contact with your brake drum, you can try this.  Take a piece of chalk, and make some parallel lines all the way across your brake shoes.  Now you do the same thing with the chalk inside the brake drum.  Put everything back together, and spin your wheel on its axle.  Using your brake lever or arm depending on which brake you are checking, bring the wheel to a halt.  Remove the brake from the wheel and look to see how the wear pattern of the chalk is.  Where the chalk wore off first is where you have high spots on your brake shoes.  Take your sandpaper, and grind a little bit off of the linings where they were making contact.  Put the whole thing back together and repeat the whole wheel spinning and stopping thing again.  If you still don’t have a wear pattern that is consistent, and all the way around, keep on sanding and spinning until you finally get the desired effect. 

   If the problem is not with your brake linings, but is instead found that your brake drum is slightly out of round, you might choose to do a little modification to your brake drums.  If you have a lathe, or other method of turning your brake drums back to round, then I don’t need to tell you what to do, other than be sure that you take out only an absolute minimum of material.  WWID?  Well thanks to modern technology, he would probably go and get some of that fine grit sandpaper that is self adhesive, and apply some of that to his brake shoes, being sure to back off the adjusting nut enough to get the drum over the sandpaper without tearing it.  Then he would re-adjust the brakes and go for a short ride at a slow pace.  When he got home, he would have managed to grind his own brake drums and picked up another bottle of Vodka while he was doing it.  He could have also refinished his linings by using the adhesive side on the brake drums and the grit side taking a bit off of the linings.  When you are finished using this method, you must be sure to clean everything really well before putting it all back together for the final time.  Sand and metal shavings are no good for any moving part. 

   There are times when the poor old brake linings just don’t have what it takes to be retained.  When this is the case, you are best to get some new brake linings and replace the old ones.  Take a small chisel and chisel off the tops of the rivet heads on the inner side of the brake block, and remove the linings.  Clamp the new lining against the brake block, and using the 9 holes in the block for alignment, take a 3.1mm drill bit and drill a set of 9 holes through the lining so that you can rivet the new lining into place.  Don’t forget to countersink the holes so that the rivet heads will fit snugly into the holes and not stick up and gouge chunks out of your brake drum. 

Place the rivets through the holes in the lining and brake block, and being sure that there are no gaps between the lining and the base, peen over the rivets nice and tight.  The rivet heads after preparing the lining and countersinking, the rivet heads should be recessed at the minimum 1.8mm and 4.5mm if the linings you are using are the stock 9mm thickness.  If the linings are slightly thicker or thinner, adjust your countersink accordingly.  Do not allow your linings to extend more than .08mm above the brake block face.

   When installing new shoes, remember to take the time to sand off the rough edges of the new linings so that they contour to more or less fit the curve of the drum.  This prevents the contact area from being limited to the area on the leading edge for contact, and allows for more of the lining surface to get a grip on the surface of the brake drum.  Be sure to leave enough gap when you adjust your shoes initially, so that they don’t drag and either ruin your new hub, or boil out the gear oil in the final drive.

   You can use brake cleaner to do your final clean up before re-assembling, and when you lube the appropriate pivot points in your brake linkage do so SPARINGLY. 

     From: MRACER
Re. Cleaning oily brake shoes.
About the brake shoes- I just placed brake shoes into an old soup pan half full with water and put some soda - about 6 table spoons of it. After about 20 min boiling the water got really dark as the grease came off the material. It wasn't really floating on the top of water because it was all boiling together with water. One thing is for sure - after I let it dry overnight, it was really easy to give it a bit of sanding and re-install it on the hub.

   Another common problem with the Dnepr is that there is not a lot of room for you to get your foot to depress the rear brake pedal fully because the pedal is sandwiched in between the motorcycle and the sidecar.  It seems that Ivan had pretty small feet, but those of us with big old boots can find the situation down right dangerous. 

   At the rear of the bike, under the final drive, is a brass nut with a cam on it on a threaded rod.  This mechanism is what controls the pedal height.  If you have loosened it the pedal will need to be depressed a little lower before it begins to engage.  At the resting position the pedal is held into place by the spring and the spring pulls the pedal back up to its operating position.  You can adjust the mechanism until you get the pedal to begin to engage at a point that is comfortable for you.  If you have a sidecar brake, you will need to adjust the nut on the sidecar linkage in the same direction or you could find that the tub veers sharply to the right when you depress the brake pedal. 

   There are two other options the first of which involves moving your foot rest.  First you loosen the rear engine mount, which has the foot rest bolted onto the splined end of the shaft.  You can remove the foot rest and by moving it a spline or two you can raise or lower the footrest.  In its lowest position it will act as a stop on the brake pedal arm.  This will prevent the arm from coming up as far.  Next you must readjust the brake linkages on both the motorcycle and the sidecar to compensate for the new pedal height.  This will give you more foot clearance, but will require more forward rotation of your foot to depress the brake lever fully.  There are even those who completely remove the footrest, and use the sidecar frame as a footrest, and leaving a lot more room between the bike and sidecar to get your foot onto the pedal and depress it fully. 

   The second option is to reverse the brake pedals L linkage.  This will give you some increase in the mechanical advantage field, but there is a trade off.  Now you have more travel in the brake pedal before it engages.  By reversing it you reduce your pedal travel, but now you need to depress the lever with more force to engage the brakes.  If you remove the pivot plate on the inner end of the brake pedal shaft, and rotate it one spline clockwise, this will move the brake pull rod backwards about 30mm.  This in turn will allow you to rotate the rear brake cam lever about 2 splines back so that the lever is now at a 90* angle when the rear brake is applied.  This will allow you to modulate the rear brake at will and even allow you to lock up the rear brake at will.  You may no longer be required to remove your foot from the foot peg to operate the rear pedal.

   One final thought for those with a sidecar brake.  You might find it best to adjust the brakes so that the rear brake of the motorcycle engages BEFORE the sidecar brake.  That way if you find yourself flying the car and drifting into traffic while executing a hard right hand turn, you can hit the rear brake and lock the back wheel first, swinging the tail of the rig to point deeper into the turn. 

   On the following pages are included a diagram of the sidecar brake assembly from the MT-11 & MT-16 models as many riders have upgraded to the later model sidecar.  Also pictured are rear brake lever assemblies from these models as well as the rear brake lever assembly for the MT-10 as there are a few differences and some extra parts.  Some fabrication is necessary for this upgrade.