BMXmuseum.com Forums

Yes and no.

It's possible to cut and rethead the bolt, but some will discourage that. The pivot bolt is much longer on a front to go all the way through the mounting hole is a fork. Most rear mounts are a small tube or a flat plate therefore the bolt is shorter. There are other differences on some brakes as others have noted above.

I've used front brakes on the rear tons of times. works better than trying to use rear brakes on the front. Looks stupid with 100 washers but it'll stop you, Beats going without brakes... IMO your best bet is to take the rear post out of some shitty no name caliper and just rebuild the good one.

Kvon wrote:

Great information and perspective everyone. Thank you.  Is the geometry of the caliper arms any different between front and rear? Depth adjustment on the pads longer?  Off hand... does anyone know what the standard front and rear pivot bolt length is (was/should be) on an '84 MX1000?
Thanks again.

No difference in the arms and if you're not concerned about era correct parts I believe Porkchop sells the new Dia-Compe pivot bolts on his site they should work fine.
Also in the past I have had good luck re-threading then cutting off the excess especially for use on flat brake bridges like Hutch I would take an old even bent DC front then clean & polish it up, thread it almost all the way down mount it for size reference then cut it to the proper length. I hate looking at all those washers and spacers people use, just don't do this to an OG rear bolt they are hard to find and always in demand so an old front is the best bet.