Travman, how are the brakes on your bike? Any good?
We've replaced the master brake cylinder, new stainless hoses, and overhauled the calipers on ours.
Should improve performance but haven't been able to test it yet.
Did you ride your CX and get a chance to use your brakes before tearing your down?
For a vintage bike the brakes are decent on my CX. The brakes stop the bike well enough. My only complaint is that you can't use them like my modern bikes and really slam on the brakes if you need to. If I do the front end will chatter, probably because the skinny little forks are flexing.
There are two problems with most vintage bike brakes. The first is that many vintage bikes are not in good shape because of some lack of maintenance issue or glazed brake material from lack of use, or worn out brake lines, or air in the brake fluid, or worn out cables, etc. It sounds like you have gone through the brakes and replaced what is needed. I've ridden several older bikes and mentioned how bad the brakes are and then the owner would say, "they are all like that". The second issue is that vintage brakes are just not as good as new bike brakes. I've ridden bikes from the early sixties through eighties. There is a general evolution of better brakes and starting around the late early 80's there are some bikes with what I would consider good brakes especially if they have dual front disks. I may try to fit a second disk up front if I can the parts from a later CX500/650 or GL650 with duals.
I ride my friend's 1972 BMW R60/5 with drums front and back. He has those brakes set up as good as they can get. This CX feels like it stops a lot quicker than that bike because it has better brake feel, but actually they are pretty close. That is the problem with drums. Even when they are working well, they have no feel. Once your are spoiled by disk brakes you won't want the feel of drums for sporty riding.
My Darmah has the best brakes of any older bike I've ever ridden. It has dual Brembos up front and another in the back with iron rotors. I'm pretty sure these were the best you could get on a street bike at the time. You have to use a lot of hand strength and the bike is fairly heavy, but the feel is great.
