I’m running back and forth between bikes fabricating shit, waiting for parts, dodging bullets and counting the days. Yesterday I received a note from David Zelma at Performance Machine. “We found the front caliper bracket,” he said and I sighed. I was beginning to wonder whether I dove into an odyssey to find the un-findable part.

I can vision that 10-inch front brake rotor bracket. I could swear I owned one at one time. Here’s the number, PN 1208-0017. It was designed for their standard 4- piston calipers to mount on XL-FX 1978 through 1983 with 10-inch disc brake rotors. The 10-inch number is the critical bastard. I have a handful of the ’84 and up jobs for larger rotors. If you have one of the 10-inch brackets, frame it and mount it on a wall.

So we shifted to the rear bracket. We had the coolest PM 8- inch floating rotor without holes in the aluminum center. Jay took it home and carefully measured the center of the lip, figured out five even positions and drilled them.

The PM based rear wheel hub needed to be drilled, for the rotor and that was going to be a trick. We didn’t have a drill press base large enough to reach the hub but we did have a large chunk of 6-inch steel tubing and center punches to mark the holes.

We marked, punched and drilled the holes with guide holes first. We taped the drill bit to give us the proper depth without drilling through the hub. Then we drilled the holes the proper diameter to tap them with 5/16 coarse threads.

With the rotor drilled and fitted, we dug around for a bunch of domed Allens to fasten the rotor to the hub.

The bolt heads needed to be shallow enough to miss the caliper bracket and stainless domed heads did the job. The other consideration is strength. According to Derek from DMP Enterprises, our fastener connection, (818) 775-9804, we should not use stainless fasteners on rotors. “You need grade 8 fasteners,” Derek said.

Okay, but this is a much lighter, less powerful bike. Next move, a wheel spacer between the two Timken bearings in the hub and Jay brought over the seamless tubing necessary, and we did our damnest to make a measurement. Then he took the data to the lathe and cut the tubing square to make sure the bearings ran true to the races in the hub.

After several precision cuts, Jay cut the bearing slightly short and we used a couple of shims to make it good with a clearance of .010-inch. Then I greased the bearings thoroughly and slathered grease on the races. With the spacer/shims in place we installed the bearings and seals. The wheel was ready to rock. We needed to grapple with the small rear PM two-piston caliper and mounting bracket.

This is a tricky Performance machine setup. It works with several sized rotors for axle spacing. It also allowed us to run the anchor bracket out either side of the caliper. It bolts into the middle of the caliper halves. First, we determined where to drill the ¾-inch axle hole by the PM gauge stamped into the caliper bracket. We drilled a guide hole then the major ¾-inch puppy.

Here’s the deal. The bracket fit right onto the axle, then we had to take the caliper apart and install the anchor-rod bracket. As you can see, in the top of the shot below, the bracket is sticking north. It can also be installed aiming south, or east and west, depending on how you’re holding the caliper. I musta split that caliper a half-dozen times during this process.

It was a trip figuring out all these components and how they fit together. You get the results of all our puzzle work. Okay, so once we put all the pieces together properly and wrapped the caliper over the rotor, centering the pads with the proper wheel spacer, we installed the wheel.

On to Page 2...