A word of warning though. My first go at a rod was 8mm stainless bar, with threaded ends, into 8mm female ends on the rose joints, which looked, and worked fine, in tension, applying the brake, until I tried a hill start up a 1 in 4 incline. The rod bent! 10mm rod, and ends swiftly substituted, and no more issues.
I have looked into this and frankly can't be bothered to do it..........I don't see any advantage really, not on a smaller capacity bike, particularly when the rear brake doesn't get used that much.
Agreed Al. It was a 90's thing together with anti dive on forks- the theoretical advantage was sound but in practice the gain was so negligible (if anything at all) vs the amount of effort involved to be of any real benefit.
I must be one of the few people who use there rear break alot, some times only the rear when moving in traffic.
I underslung the rear caliper on my 907(same setup as SScarb originally) using standard plate from a SSie I think. It locks onto the same anchor pin on the arm. I did it because I had boiling fluid problem in Germany going down twisty hairpins. I was using a lot of back brake as I had a leaking fork seal. Its more in the airflow now.
Mine uses M8 rod ends, not least because the rear one fastens to the M8 rear caliper mounting bolt, it does use a 14mm rod though with the 8mm threads in - Larger hollow rod is stronger than a thinner solid one. I have heard of carbon-fibre rods braking when trying to hold the bike on a hill (load reversed) so you may want to avoid them...
That's because they were made by muppets! I used to make CF torque rods. Like all things charcoal - its all in the layup. I wouldn't just go and buy a standard length of generic CF rod however as they'll be pretty primitive. Also its a case in point of how dubious stainless can be.
