Freqman1
Riding a '37 Dayton Super Streamline
Couple more thoughts and clarifications:
Just to settle the housing color discussion once and for all, the Webb and Dural F&R drums introduced in April of '38 use the same "Special aluminum finish, waterproof cable housing":
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And when I cross reference the part numbers for the ferrules and lever end bushings in the catalog for these early lightweight brakes they are the same as the beefy housing for the balloon tire drum brakes. It looks like only the 40+ lightweights with the skinny cast lever and caliper brakes got the smaller gauge housing. I think all Webb lever applications got this aluminum finish cable that everyone thought was p!ss gold - meaning late 38 or 39 for balloon tire bikes. I now think at some point by 39ish all new cable production was likely silver, possibly NOS older black stuff still being used too - who knows. I do know what color aluminum is though....
I think there is a ton of overlap year to year on availability:
- Black cables - mostly early short lever starting in 37, fades out late 38 to mid 39
- Silver cables - show up mid 38 on lightweights for Webb and Dural brakes, late 38 to early 39 on everything else
- Early short lever - 37 to 39 on bikes, and through 40 via parts
- Webb lever - mid 38 on lightweights, early 39 (or even late 38) to early/mid 40 on balloon
- Skinny cast lever - 40+
- Webb lever used on both early 4" fore brake as well as the later 40+ version hubs.
Anyway, it's been fun. I've obviously looked at this stuff way too much, but never really in such an organized and in-depth way. I learned a bunch of stuff just trying to explain what I thought I already knew.
Shawn - have you thought about contacting @Mark Mattei to see if he has any more lever or drum related blueprints/drawings that he hasn't posted on his site? Maybe the mysteries of the Webb lever variants, porkchop spring changes, etc. could be solved if there are more of those he just hasn't made public. A huge thanks here to Mark for putting all of those up for all to see and learn from.
Thanks again Eric for sharing. I'll see Mark at Ann Arbor and see what he may be abel to help us with. V/r Shawn