Anyone still running mechanical brakes on a '32?

Hello folks,

I've been studying the braking setup on my '32 and because at this early stage (still basically getting to know it, it's been in my garage for about a month now) I've still not decided the final details of the way I'm going to restore and build it, so several questions are still popping up.

I love the details of the mechanical setup and the engineering behind it, so I'm going to give it a try when I get the thing running. Is anyone still using this setup? Are there any worthy upgrades to the basic design? If so, which? Any model worth picking for better parts?

Thanks in advance for your input on this!

Cheers, Eddie

 

When set up properly they will work, not well, but work. Tough decision if you are restoring the car as totally original. They will scare you to death.

 

Juice brakes are a worthy upgrade. A dual master cylinder wouldn't suck either.

 

My brother is doing a pre war period car using mechanical brakes. While I know hydraulic brakes work better I think the mechanical brakes get a bad rap due to very worn parts. The rods, holes in levers, bushings, actuators for the shoes etc. He replaced most everything with NOS parts and with all the slop gone they have to be way better than they would have been. Still not as good as hydraulics but I think the quality of the worn out parts gives them a bad rap. Cars did stop before 1940, lol.

 

Step on the brakes a little to hard in a emergency and when those rods bend........well it's not pretty.

 

this has been discussed(beat to death?) with many opinions for and against with both sides giving good points,ive rode in cars(model A's with 4 bangers) with mechanical brakes, they stop well,but if you are doing any type of V8 personally i would advise against it.

 

Bend? They are under tension.

 

We used to call them "Press and Pray" brakes

 

Yes...it is a rod that runs from the brake pedal to the brakes.

 

If I owned a 32 and was planning on driving it, I would want to KNOW I could stop well in case I needed to. To me, updating the brakes is a no brainer, but I generally don't have much use for a restoration.....I'm a hotrod kind of guy.

 

How do you bend something under tension? Break maybe, but bend. I have ridden many a motor cycle with mech. drum brakes and the drums were and are the limiting factor not the actuating rod. This debate has run it's course many times here, it is old tech. as are non energizing drums, flatheads, bias tires, etc. All have there limits and personalities and need to be used with their limits in mind.

 

Pull on a rope and see if it bends

 

There was a time when cars had barely adequate brakes and most drivers took that into account.

Today, almost every driver expects every other driver to have superb brakes and razor edge reactions.

These days mechanical brakes are best reserved for restorations that never see a freeway or a rush hour commute.

In the late 40s and 50s there were a lot of prewar era daily drivers and hydraulic brake upgrades were common. In our town, the brake shop did at least one a week.

I don't think you will be compromising the integrity of your near original Deuce by upgrading the brakes.

I am a big fan of MT Products Lincoln style self energizing brakes. A bit pricy. But what is your ass worth?

 

Properly restored and adjusted mechanical brakes do and did a perfectly adequate job of braking in the world of 1932 and 1942 and 1952. But this is the world of 2011 and a sea of midget mobiles with power ABS 4 wheel disc brakes surround you everywhere you go and stopping for THEM is no biggie, for you not so good.
Any early car converted to hydraulic brakes of the 30s-40s-50s is better off than not. The question is how YOU intend to use the vehicle and how YOU feel about chancing a front or rear collision, let alone a deadly side impact job.

 

I doubt that many of the guys here have ever driven a Ford with properly restored mechanical brakes. Most likely they were worn and needed servicing. They most likely haven't been lubed since it left the factory.

Over 30 years ago I called about a 36 touring sedan with a 55 265 up to an adapter. I almost didn't go look because the owner was a purist and he removed the hydraulics and completely restored a set of mechanical's. He had found all the NOS brake parts of which there are many including the metal on metal wedges that are usually worn badly. He said I can lock up all 4 wheels on any road in the county!

I went to look and I bought it. I drove the shit out of it. I drove it across country to Memphis in 1980 for the Nationals. I could not tell the difference from a 40 Ford hydraulic system. No they are not as good as power disc brakes. Neither is the hydraulic 40 system

I'm not recommending restoring mechanicals over hydraulics but if it is all there, some cleaning of the old dried grease and some fresh grease might get them to work reasonably well without a big cash out lay. There are a lot of moving parts so it's not a small job but it's not that big of a deal.

Now all of you that pulled a worn and rusty hulk out of the junkyard in the 50s-60s can scream about how terrible that they were.

Any decision would depend on the condition of the parts that you have. If it needs a lot, hydraulics are the way to go.

 

Thanks guys,

That's exactly the perspective I wanted, tommy.

Personally I'm thinking more and more about restoring the car and making a few simple upgrades to it, much in the style of what was feasible in the 40's or early 50's. So no huge supercharger or modern engine to worry about.

For a kickoff I'll be running the 4-banger, maybe with some simple mods to get a bit more ponies out of it, but won't get carried away, because at some point I do want to scratch the itch of having a flathead put on it, but even that one will be in a mild state of tune, nothing too radical.

The basics of the braking system seem very sound to me, and it's all basically there, so I was wondering if with a proper restoration they would be up to the job.

Also, I live in a small town, where there's no heavy traffic, and my own routine rarely demands that I drive into town, so most of my driving is on main roads when on my daily commute, or quiet country roads when on pleasure runs. I'm also experienced in driving classic cars regularly and I do my own maintenance, so I know and care for my cars, and drive sensibly.

I was wondering about other models that might user bigger drums to upgrade, though... aren't the drums from the BB bigger?

Cheers, Eddie

 

How about one of Flathead Teds Upgrades, ...............and still keep the mech brakes........?

http://www.flatheadted.com/modules.php?name=ShoppingSystem&op=product&prodcode=DEADSTOPDELUXE


.

.

 

Bingo.

 

i use mech brakes with flathead ted setup I can lookup my brakes in my opinion only but aint that good enough

 

Yeah, I was gonna point that out but figured why bother.

 

Besides restoring the 897 pivots and pins and such that add play along the way from pedal to shoe, look over the centering VERY carefully. Front is like Model A, with a little track and rollers, and tracks are usually worn ruining the centering. That needs to be built back up to center...that area was usually bodged up decades ago, as mechanics would simply hammer the ends of the track part back uphill to approximate center.
Cannot remember exact arrangement on '32 rears. The clevises are good forgings and can be welded up to repair worn pin holes. Some repros are CAST IRON made by communists bent on our destruction.
I collect old brake manuals, and found one from the thirties with a sort of floater conversion using minor adaptations to parts to help with shoe alignment. Passed that along to Suhr. Maybe he could post it here.

My first test of '32 mechanicals...a few years back, my Alice hunted down a very nice B roadster in the jungles of Pennsylvania and bought it. I never had a look at the underside and could not even get into the car because it was buried deep in engines and miscellany, but I didn't worry because I could tell all sheetmetal was mint...
Well, the farmers delivered it up to my place on their flatbed trailer, I hopped in onto a wad of spider webs and mouse droppings, and they gave me a shove down my VERY steep driveway towards the garage. As I coasted past warp speed and steered into my final approach, I suddenly realized that I had NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT THERE WAS IN THE BRAKE DEPARTMENT and that I WAS CERTAINLY GOING TO DIE WHEN I REACHED THE BACK OF THE GARAGE!!!!
I stomped the pedal, the car slowed down solid and straight, and I cruised on in with my elbow over the door and stopped right where I wanted to.

 

the tire is only 4 inches wide...how much brake do you need???
i run mechanicals on all my cars
adjust them correctly
know you are in a car that is over 80 years old
and injoy
tk

 

I have several 32's and a 34 with mechanicals and drive them all the time......with a healthy dose of caution and looking down the road. They work fine and are almost as good as 40-48 hydraulics, although I will only use Lincoln style brakes with anything with modern power in it.

Drive them like they were intended to be driven, s-l-o-w-l-y.

 

They do work when properly fitted and adjusted, just like they did in 1932. Of course, the 17 year old girl in front of you with mom's Acura, that is on her phone while running late for softball practice, doesn't know that, and she needs to make the next right turn. If you could control the world around you, and keep it in 1932, you'd be fine, but as soon as you enter the modern roadway, you, those with you, and those around you are at risk. There is a reason hot rodders changed them out quickly, and you really don't want to relive that.

 

Well I feel pretty cleared on this matter, got to say... and as I suspected, they can deliver decent performance if gotten into proper shape.

Thanks for the tip on the Flathead Ted kits, Keith, must get those on my shopping list now!

I'm with tub in da dirt, with narrow tires what's the point of over-braking a car? I'm not going to use super-size tires, so not much point in having massive braking power. I drive a car daily running 165-section tires and very early disc brakes (1967), so the power isn't massive, but since they're like new (totally rebuilt with new parts in '07), they do their job just fine and keep me out of trouble even when I drive a bit more adventurously.

The likely options will be the upgrade with the aforementioned kits and careful choice of brake linings, so I'll get the braking to its optimum performance.

Thanks to all for your inputs, you've been a great help!

Cheers, Eddie

 

About 10/15 years ago, I drove a 32 5 window coupe with only 8 thousand original miles. It was a V8 car. I was pleasantly surprised how well it stopped. NOT as GOOD as my 32 roadster with the 56 F-100 brakes and a 9 inch Ford rear end but it was adequate for the putt-putt style of driving I was doing. I never got over 35 MPH or so but at the 30/35 MPH, it did stop straight and fairly good.

Difficult decision ...

I have a bunch of 56 F-100 brake stuff so I KNOW I would install the hydraulics. But I can understand your plight .

 

That's another point I didn't mention but one that does also make things that little bit harder on this side of the world... no easy acess to other early cars to pillage for parts, so that also weighs into consideration. If I order a bunch of brake parts from the US I'll be paying through my nose to both shipping companies and customs here, which is never a happy event.

Besides, I do like the basic engineering of the system as it stands... so I've got to give it a chance to prove its worth. It still brakes, at nearly 80 years old... it's all there. No chance of doing that with hydraulics...

I can remember how poor my daily driver's brakes were when I got it, and the car had only been laid up for 5 years. My '32 has been laid up for the better part of 50 years, and it still brakes. I was reading yesterday on the development of the Model B and it amused me to find that the original advertising actually sang the praises of the "Safety of steel from toe to wheel."...

Cheers, Eddie

 

WILL I MAKE IT HOME ALIVE THIS TIME?

I still have mechanicals on my semi stock '36 Ford. Haven't driven it in several years - other projects get in the way ya know. Maybe they were passable back in the day? But I never liked them and converting to juice was one of the upgrades I hope to do someday. With that said:

I DONT KNOW WHY ANYONE WOULD RUN MECHANICALS ON A CAR THEY ACTUALLY DRIVE!

I used a dual master cylinder and the Lincoln style brakes (back) and F150 (front) on our '32 roadster. And man that thing will stop. Parts are easy to get for the setup.

 

Bruce....
i think that this is the first f word i have seen you type

and something to think about...you will never go out to the garage, turn the key, step on the stop pedal...and have it go to the floor
you may have a dead battery, but you willl always have brakes
tk