Criminy, they were crappy brakes in 1972 - I doubt they've improved with age...
They were the best available street brakes (well except for the Laverda setup but no one had Laverdas), at the time and they work quite well... sorta. (Lavera made a bike called the SF, which stands for Super Freni or “Super Brakes". How could you NOT love a bike called GOOD BRAKES).
As vintage race bike brakes they suck large. The brake is effective BUT the whole thing weighs so much anything you gain in brakes, you lose ten fold in handling. I ran one on the front of a CB450, handled like a truck, removed it and sold it for at least as much as this guy wants, twenty years ago. Mine had a 40 hole Boranni rim, not like this POS with a Yamaha 36 hole street rim(that wheel is not laced correctly. 40 spoke hub with a 36 spoke rim).
If you think this drum brake is expensive, check out Fontana or Grimeca or the holy grail of drum brakes; The Yamaha TD/TZ drums. A NICE set of Yamaha drum brakes will fetch upwards of $5000 USD. (PLEASE someone prove me wrong and say "I got a buddy selling those brakes for $500. I'm looking for a set).
OH, and these are called "four leading edge shoe" brakes.
For those of you not old enough to remember drum brakes; THEY WEREN'T THAT BAD
This brake, set up properly, is probably as good as the 1973 RD350 disk brake that rocked the motorcycling world.
The trick was to get it set up, and over the years I have seen very few set up properly
... except in the rain. When it's wet, you grab a handful of brake, it then takes a couple of seconds to dry THEN bites. Can you say "Over the handlebars"?
... and we can now get brake shoes for this setup in "Green", so YES, they have got better over time.
