It's not really possible where I live. I can leave as much following distance from the car in front of me as I want to. Whenever there is slightly more than a car length between me and the car in front of me, someone will pull into it. It's just that simple. For the most part our freeways were built on top of the county roads that they replaced. And large part there is no "back way" to get to many places. It is freeway or no way. I live in a city, so I also have to deal with entitled pedestrians who will walk out in front of a moving vehicle because they have the right of way. They seem to believe that the laws of man somehow supersede the Laws of Physics.
I may be speaking out of turn : I am not the administrator, but maybe they will be along soon…. You can report the thread if you are not happy, or others may do that if they are not happy….. The administration consists of several people so that may explain some of your perceived inconsistency. The administrators, who, ( also as I understand it ) give their time as volunteers so that we can all enjoy this forum of common interest. They possibly have full time jobs and family and sleep requirements to also fill in their day after their HAMB duties. Trying to keep 20,000 plus people absolutely contented on an internet forum is unlikely to happen……… enjoy the thread before it too gets locked ??? .
I have never lived there, but I have spent some time in LA, and SF, so I can understand your point. Personally, I avoid all cities like the plague
Yeah it's pretty much laid out in the rules. Its clear to me. Even though some choose not to run discs due to the belief that they aren't traditional, some choose to run them due to the fact that the area they drive in requires them to have to stop quicker? Maybe? And don't forget, if I take my hot rod from a whopping stock horsepower of 150, up to let's say 300, shouldn't I need to also make it capable of slowing down on the other end of the spectrum? No different to me than all of the 9" Ford rear ends being used to upgrade, or a tougher transmission to handle the added horsepower. If you wanna put a jaguar anything on your own car, have at it, just don't poke the bear on a forum that doesn't support them.
I was going to say that too, until I remembered farting around with the drum parking brakes inside the rear discs on my '65 Vette. Levers, adjusters, springs, all the stuff drums have, plus rotors and calipers on top. Does stop good though..
Just starting to feel that some posts are receievd differently because of who posts them and not what the subject matter is. I was not complaining about the topics, as I am open to all that comes, but when you are prepared to hear all about rear disc brakes and not let a call for help regarding a a Jag IRS stay open, I was scratching my head. Jag stuff fits into our year limits and many T Buckets used such IRS setups. Cant upset me with subject matter, I love seat bealts, disc brakes and cruise controls if they fit in our era. My concern was about tolerance and consistency and just because somebody maybe having a bad day and hits the REPORT button, surely that is not the only critera for a shut down...
I have driven big trucks and trailers with drum brakes for nearly 40 years, and there has been several times I wished I had disc brakes. I have experienced brake fade in the mountains, not a good feeling when you weigh close to 80,000 lbs and that weight is pushing you downhill... That being said, my 47 Lincoln has, stock 47 Lincoln 12" drum brakes up front, and 10" Fairlane drums on the rear. I don't live in the mountains, don't get on the interstates, most of my driving is on 55 mph two lane roads. They were designed for the weight of this car, so they do the job. I did add a dual master cylinder and a booster since the original stuff was rusted solid. I'll admit, I looked into putting discs on the front, but didn't find much in the way of kits, plenty to put Lincoln brakes on Ford axles, not much about putting discs on Lincoln axles. I figured since Lincoln brakes seemed to be the go to on Fords to replace the Lockheed style brakes, they must be pretty decent to start with, so I kept them. If I did more high speed interstate or congested city driving, I might have to reconsider that.
I did a rear disc swap 3 times on o/t vw’s I owned an air cooled bug and 2 first gen rabbits . With 0 improvement in braking ( I should mention I also upgraded the front discs on the rabbits to 11” . But these cars are silly light with a short wheel base . I’ve owned 4 wheel manual drum brake cars with bendix style brakes and thought they stopped just fine. I prefer a disc / drum set up as you get the stopping benefits of disc with a high firm pedal of drum brakes. I remember when I got into the trade ( late 90’s) that’s when “ 4 wheel disc brakes “ started coming out on higher end cars and some high end domestic cars as a option. lots of folks would come into the shop complaining of low brake pedal , just not used to the softer pedal 4 wheel disc has over disc/drum. Anyways I prefer non powered disc/drum brakes . Firm pedal and fewer parts to fart around with being non powered and cleaner look in the engine bay.
My Willys 'gasser' had to have fromt disks. Then to be period correct it vhad to have aluminum Buick drums on the Olds rear. I installed a front suspension not to be named on two cars and it has great disks. Both combined with Ford 9" rear drums have great brakes. Main point is make sure the components all work together. Better brakes come with small master cylinder, larger wheel cylinder diameters. Brake tubing size has no impact on brake function.
Disc vs drum for me depends on the use of the car. For a street car, drums are fine. 4 drums well set up, properly sized for the weight and speed, will stop every bit as good as discs for the first several simultaneous attempts. Stock, skinny, non-self energizing drums in a car with double or triple the stock horsepower is not a good setup IMHO. For mountain driving and trailer pulling, you should be down shifting, not riding the brakes and overheating them. For racing, reducing weight is one of the highest priorities. There, a lightweight disk setup with aluminum calipers and aluminum hats will save a good 60 pounds compared to drums, making them almost a necessity.
It all depends on what you intend to do with the vehicle, where and how you intend to drive it and to a degree if entering "traditional" shows as a 100% traditional build is more important than being able to stop in time when a car with a serious set of disk brakes nails the brakes in front of you. We all tend to use and drive our "traditional rods and customs" differently and have different needs for braking and drivability. Some drive a couple hundred miles a month running down to the coffee hang out and to a local event or cruise night and think they put a lot of miles on their cars while others drive their rods to work either every day or several times a week and rack up miles in heavy traffic. I just remember that BobK had a MII front end, late rear and late six and never caught a ration of crap about it but his ragtop was one of the most driven cars racking up more miles in a month than some guys have racked up in several years of ownership of theirs.
I have drums on my El Camino, and will be installing a power booster. I sta off the freeway. My 53 Henry J build has front discs. The 53 Henry J I inherited has had front discs since the mid 60s
I have to refer people to my profile signature in regards to their opinions of the functionality of drum brakes versus disc brakes. All y'all need to stop.
Therefore your car can stop much faster than it originally could. Suppose you braked hard due to road conditions and were rear ended. By the above quoted logic, couldn't you be sued out of existence by a sharp lawyer representing the driver of the car that ran into you?
No, and it is not my logic. In my state, if you hit someone from behind, you are assigned fault at the scene. That's the law. There is no getting around it. Any lawyer who attempted that case could then be sued for malpractice, and put their law license at risk.
Around here you hit somebody from behind you get a ticket for following to close. My son inlaw was in a 6 car pileup he got stopped but the car behind him hit him and knocked him into the cat in front every car got a ticket except the first car.
Now if you want to run disc brakes on your car that's fine it is your car do as you wish, but there are a lot of half truths, bad information, and people passing their options off as fact. For those who say drums aren't up to the task, this is a video I took at Fonda speedway of the three fastest/winningest cars in my club. All three are drum brakes and regularly finish ahead of the two disc brake cars. All three are 2800 LBS or heavier Our races are 12 to 15 laps long the breaks only get a few seconds of cool down a lap, we run on medium banked 1/4 miles, flat 1/2 miles, to a 36 degree banked 1/2 mile. Not once in three years has one of these cars had any brake issues. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1013559645899208 In car video from the 115, if drum brakes were as bad as some people claim as hard as these guys are racing they should have crash in the turn 1 wall by about the third lap!
The truth is, if you get the vehicle up to around 50 miles an hour and, on clean, dry pavement, you can lock up all four wheels you don't need more brake, you need more tire.
I've got a 33 pickup with disc's on the front and drums on the back and I spent a lot of time dialing in the front to rear brake bias... it stops great... I have large 4 wheel power disc's on my 36 pickup ... I've spent a lot of time trying to get them dialed in... I had to change to a larger master cylinder... I'm probably going to take the power booster off ... It's really to light for the size brakes and you better be ready to stop if you hit the pedal hard... I've got a 63 pickup with 4 wheel drum brakes... They been rebuilt... New shoes .. rear drums turned ... Front drums replaced .. new wheel cylinders ...new springs and hardware... New master cylinder ... It stops like shit ... Takes a lot more distance than my other two trucks ... ... I will be changing to front disc brakes and a duel master cylinder... I don't care about what brakes a vehicle came with... I want brakes that I feel work for me....
The coupster has 57 Ford PU brakes on the front and the rear has 63 Fairlane. My car weighs a little less than 2/3s the weight of the donors so that makes me feel that I have adequate braking for a street driven car. I had a Volvo disc brake set up for the front (copied from an article in R&C). It would have cost me as much for rebuilt calipers as the whole drum brake set up did.
The plural of anecdote is not data, and the track is not the street. They do not correlate. Show me 10,000+ pages of raw data showing that drums are better on a street car in today's traffic, and we can debate the issue.
There's a reason we upgrade things. I'm putting my money on the fact that most cars here don't get driven more than 50 miles a year, shitty brakes don't matter on that car. Hell, put mechanical brakes on it, isn't gonna matter. Wonder why new super fast wicked fucking cars don't have 4 wheel drum brakes...
I just read that the factory is going back to babbitt bearings also. I wrote it down and read it lmao!!
I think that's true most places. Now, that's not to say everyone behind you always gets a ticket; I got rear-ended a couple of years ago in my DD. I'm stopped at a light. The car behind me is also stopped, with 1/2 a car length between us. The third car didn't stop, plowed into the second car at about 45 MPH. All the LEO wanted to know from me was if the car behind me hit first or was shoved into me. I told him shoved, he agreed, no ticket for that driver. BUT, the second car's insurance WAS liable for my damage because they were the car that hit me. It was up to them to recover damages for both of our cars from the third car. I'll note mine was the only one not totaled... I believe the laws are written that way for 'legal clarity' so to speak. I have a lot of the same road conditions as Gimpy, the Puget Sound corridor can be brutal. There are alternate routes, but they're heavily traveled also. Sometime leaving adequate space between cars just means some moron will attempt a bad pass. I want the best possible brakes. The disc/drums on my avatar are 'adequate'. The OEM drums on my '60 Ford 'vert on the other hand aren't. Considered marginal in reviews when the car was new, that one is getting 4 wheel discs at some point. I've even toyed with adding ABS as I've got a complete system I salvaged, but the complication factor goes up sharply...
Well yeah, if there is a third car involved then the driver in the middle did not "hit you", in as much as they were forced into you. The at-fault party is the person that caused the accident. As for ABS, you can use it if you grab the entire system form a pre CANBUS/LIN vehicle, where the system is effectively standalone. It is WAY off-topic here, but it can be done, so we will leave that subject alone.
Listen, I get that you guys want to build and drive period-correct cars, and that is fine. You do you. Yes, I do know that it is not directly HAMB related, but it is something important. What you do need to understand is that you are at a scientifically quantifiable, and ever worsening disadvantage against other cars on the road in a HAMB-friendly vehicle. Cars equipped with electronic stability control can manage a panic stop, several thousands of times faster than a Human can, with processed data from dozens of sensors, without wheel lockup or loss-of-control. This is even-yet-still-way-better than just all discs. Before you reach the first vowel in your expiative, you may have made contact. Some think that this is limited to high-end or otherwise exotic cars. It is not. Electronic stability control became mandatory on all passenger vehicles in the US starting in model year 2012. They were improved every few years, and will continue to be improved. The most best ones now even put on their own brakes, and way before the Human could react. Yup, everything made in the last decade can beat a Human driver in a panic stop, hands-down, full-stop (literally), irrespective of what type of brakes the non ESC driver has, or what their skill-level is. You cannot beat a modern computer with skill. It is a slippery-slope. New vehicles are becoming ever better at keeping drivers from wiping themselves out, enabling worse and worse driving habits. Our vehicles are not improving. Built what you want. Drive what you want. Just remember what you are up against, and that you are not exempt from the Laws of Physics. They are not on your side in this matter.
The Jalopy Journal
