Brake shoe spreader tool

Stephen Brenton's purpose made tool

Stephen Brenton used to manufacture this tool. View all of the tools that Stephen Brenton used to make.

Spreads the brake shoes for easy installation.

Werner Schoom's lumber method

I extracted this information from Ralf Brinkmann on the old Yahoo! Loopframe_Guzzi news group (which has now moved to Groups.io). Ralf was mentioning Werner Schoom's technique.

Use the bench vice as a spreader method

I've been using this method for years (I really need to take a picture). Essentially I just place the brake shoes in my 6 inch bench vice and open the vice...using it as a spreader instead of a clamp. It works quickly and does a pretty good job. Although, I really want to buy Stephen's tool one of these days.

Bolt and coupler method

Thanks to John Engle for sending me his set up using simple hardware store fasteners. In John's words:

Used a ⁵⁄₈ inch pipe coupler and a ⁵⁄₈ inch × 3 inch bolt. Worked great.

Brake shoe adjuster method

Thanks to Darryn Webster for sending me his set up using a brake adjusting screw. In Darryn's own words:

Need to spread some brake shoes on your Guzzi Loop? Use a big brake shoe adjuster. USD $11.50 at NAPA. Git'r done! I tried the wood method from our German friends; Broke the wood I have available here in Florida. The cobbled together hardware solution looked like it could slip very easily; not good if a finger was in the way. Them are some strong springs! The nice, and probably expensive hand built solution would be great to have in you were tearing down a bunch, often.

Turnbuckle tensioner method

Thanks to Ingo Bader from Austria for sending me his set up using simple hardware store fasteners. In Ingo's words:

Inspired by your website, I have built the following Brake shoe spreader tool (Wire Rope Tensioner) in 5 min. Works great.

Turnbuckle tensioner method

Thanks to Jay Tynes for sending me his solution using set up using a MacPherson Strut Spring Compressor. In Jay's words:

I thought I'd pass this along to you. I was checking out your site and saw the tool for stretching brake show springs to make changing them easier. With no real way to fab and time and budget tight. I made a trip to Harbor Freight tools and reverse engineered their Strut / Spring compressor. USD $27.00 with the coupon. It worked great. It comes with two compression mechanisms, I need the thread off of one to made it work backwards. So I cut a piece off the threaded piece on the second unit, turned around the end pieces and it worked like a charm .

Ratchet strap method

Thanks to Ryan Mccall for sending me his solution using set up using a ratchet strap. In Ryan's words:

Got my 4-leading-shoe brake plates beautifully blasted and was head scratching trying to figure out to reinstall the shoes. Of course, opened up your site and found a lot of great ideas, but nothing I could use with what I had on-hand.

Then a light bulb!

Worked very well I might add...