1 of 1- Yuiop
- New Member
Offline - Registered: 26-5-2017
- Posts: 15
How to remove tab brake from SM9?
I Just searched and read a couple of threads on this forum regarding a sluggish tab.
Am convinced my problem is the tab brake. Thanks to photos posted on earlier threads, I see where it's located. However, I don't know how to go about removing it. Another fellow from CT was wondering the same thing a few years back, but I didn't find any follow up to his post.
Has anyone here tackled this problem of brake removal? If I can remove it, possibly I can replace the cork brake pads, as one member was successful in doing.
Thanks for your input.
- Laurenz van Gaalen
- Speed Champion
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- From: The Netherlands
- Registered: 20-7-2019
- Posts: 412
Re: How to remove tab brake from SM9?
It's a fairly straightforward operation, takes about 10-20 minutes to disassemble and assemble (if you're familair with the SM 8 or 9)
1) Remove the lower body
2) Remove the crescent shaped ring that holds the axis of the brake in place
3) Push the axis back until it falls out
4) Slide the brake housing upwards
- Yuiop
- New Member
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- Registered: 26-5-2017
- Posts: 15
Re: How to remove tab brake from SM9?
Thank you Laurenz. I'll get going with the operation and report back.
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Thread Starter- Yuiop
- New Member
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- Registered: 26-5-2017
- Posts: 15
Re: How to remove tab brake from SM9?
Problem was in the tab brake, but not with the little brake pads as expected.
The four pie-shaped segments that hold the actual brake pads are made from a pot metal-like material. That material deteriorates and develops cracks, The metal expand when they crack. Two of them were pressing hard against the housing of the brake mechanism and prevented its free-spinning when the tab key is depressed.
Best solution would be to either find replacements for the pie-segments or throw the cracked pieces out and abandon the brake function. I chose to discard two of the segments that were cracked and file the surface of a third so it does not bind on the housing.
I'm not sure the two segments I returned to the mechanism are effectively "braking" the carriage movement or not. To guard against possible slamming of the carriage, I set several tabs across the travel to avoid that problem.
About the time I got this fixed I remembered that years ago I had the same problem with an Olympia office manual from the same area. At that time I was able to find an entire new brake assembly and simply replaced the old one.
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Thread Starter