Long story short, it appears that brake-boss-base -- or where the springs of the v-brakes mount -- is "too long" for the Shimano v-brakes.
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| Ordinary brake boss. I'm calling the wider part of the boss where the brake's spring resides the base. |
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| Black Tektro is flush. Notice that the entire silver Shimano brake is moderately wider. However the spring portion of the Tektro brake is wider than it's Shimano counterpart. |
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| Notice the gap between the brake and the left edge of the brake boss. The spring end is in the hole of the brake boss. |
A quick comparison between the two brakes reveals the Tektro spring portion of the brake is deeper than it's Shimano counterpart. In fact, when you take into account that the entire Shimano brake is somewhat wider than the Tektro brake, the brake extends quite a bit past the end of the stud.
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| Tektro brake is flush with the stud. |
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| Shimano brake is roughly 5-10 mm past the end of the stud. |
I gather from a few online discussions that the gap between the brake-boss-base and the brake is standard for some models and not an issue: The post is more than stiff enough to support the brake and the bearings or whatever that allow the brake to rotate are inside the brake rather than between the stud and brake.
The sad thing is that after learning all of this, I determined that these Shimano brakes will not work with the folding bike. The front rack mounts onto the front of the brakes as well as to an eyelet. Changing brakes would move the mounting points and make it more than a little difficult (impossible?) to fit the rack.
So does anyone know if a Tektro short pull v-brake -- say the Tektro RX5 -- sits flush with the end of the stud? Are there other options? Thanks.
