so i want for some small rides this week and deemed my brakes to be inadequate. good thing i did. i found a perforated piston boot, brown fluid, frozen fittings and spent pads.
fortunately i had a spare caliper collecting dust and managed to salvage the pads and fittings from this.
it knocked me off the road for a couple days but the piece of mind feels good. now the front and back stoppers work well enough going by vintage standards. and i forgot to take a picture but i thought i should remind or inform anyone reading this crap that you should always use some form of mechanical locking if you run any kind of mechanical actuation for your brakes. what the hell is that you ask? if you have a lever that moves to make something happen and that action makes you stop, it should have a locking mechanism. loctite is okay, nylocs are okay but remember that those are technically only to be used once, lock-washers are pretty good too. but through having to go through AMA tech inspections and listening to Dylan's advise, my new standard is safety wire. if there is a nut or bolt that could cause catastrophic damage then that shit is wired, end of story.
