Is it possible to adjust the position of the brake lever?

[Allrover]

Hi all,

does anyone know if it is possible to adjust the position of the rear brake pedal on the CB400 Super Four, and if so can explain how to do it.

On some bikes I've seen, its a simple case of loosening a grub screw or similar, and rotating the lever on a spline. On the super four, you can't actually see the point the lever attaches to the bike as its hidden up behind the exhaust bracket I think (not sat in front of the bike right now so going form memory).

The reason is that my legs are a bit long for the bike (or the bike is a bit short for my legs, either way) so I struggle to get my right foot comfortably on the brake lever. My ankle just doesn't want to pivot that far up. I find to put my rear brake on, I have to lift my foot slightly off the foot rest, so get my toe on top of the lever. Obviously thats not good.

Does anyone know how to get the end of that brake lever any lower?

Any help much appreciated.

Regards, Chris.

[Superjack44]

On my Superfour an 1992 model the footbrake lever is more or less level with the footrest sounds like yours has somehow been bent.
There is a small connecting rod from the lever to the master cylinder that could have a small adjustment on it but I think you would have to remove the lever and master cylinder to access it.

[billgrundies]

Hi Allrover superjack is right, you can adjust the height using the piston rod on the master cylinder. at bottom edge of the footrest carrier is a small triangular type hole. you will see the rod and two nuts, you can just get a spanner in to slacken the lower nut. turn the upper nut to move the lever up or down then lock the lower nut back up. cheers.

[Allrover]

Cheers guys, I've had a look and I can just about see the nuts you mention. I thought it would be easier to take the rearset off to do it, as it only looked like a few bolts, but I've now discovered one of them has had the head stripped so the allen head just goes round and round inside it! argh. So I'll give it a go trying to adjust it using small spanners poked through that hole. Let you know how it goes....

[Allrover]

No joy. Although I can get a spanner on the nut, the little hole doesn't allow it to be turned far enough to get the spanner on again to keep it moving. That rearset is going to have to come off, time to start googling how to remove a stripped allen bolt!

[Allrover]

In case anyone ever reads this thread again, I got the brake lever adjusted.

Although you can see an adjuster nut, it isn't possible to adjust it without removing the rearset, but the good news is you don't have to dismantle everything completely.

Took me about 20 minutes in the end. Unscrew the 2 allen bolts that attach the rear brake mechanism to the big chrome rear arm (Don't know its official name). Remove the 3 big allen bolts attaching the rear chrome arm to the frame and exhaust. You can then lower the chrome arm to rest on the exhaust (on a rag) to give you space to get to the locknut on the brake mechanism.

Unscrew the locknut (I screwed it all the way up as far as it would go, as I wanted to lower the tip of the brake lever as low as it would go). Now was the tricky bit - remove the split and separate the joint where the the brake mechanism and brake lever join together. You can now rotate that joint clockwise to wind it up the screw until it butts back up against the locknut.

Re-attach the brake mechanism and brake lever joint, put the split pin back in (carefully), then put all the allen bolts back into to secure the arm & brake back onto the bike. Hey presto, job done.