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Re: Disk Brakes

To: Tootlebg2@aol.com
Subject: Re: Disk Brakes
From: richard.treacy@ch.adtranz.com
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 10:50:59 +0100
Not recommended, but anything is possible.  You would be best to approach a
hot-rod club, where many people make up their own suspensions and disc brake
systems.  But why ?

This sort of exercise is riddled with pitfalls.  For a start, caliper sizing to
suit the mechanical rear brakes would be a nightmare, and the mechanical servo
system would need extensive balancing and tuning, unless you fit a vacuum servo
and hydraulic rear brakes.  That would open even more problems.  The suspension
would need at least some radical modification to accommodate discs and calipers.

I know of an R-Type once owned by the managing director of REPCO in Melbourne
which was converted to hydraulic rear brakes and vacuum servo.  Really, my
R-Type stops better.  I must say that the R-Type brakes perform at least as well
as most disc brake systems, having a negative-servo arrangement on the brake
shoes which reduces locking considerably.  Most drum brakes are arranged such
that the braking increases the pressure on the shoes when applied (positive
feedback: the braking effort is multiplied due to the shoe mounting geometry) to
eliminate the need for a servo.  The servo arrangement on your car is a real
"party trick", and is one of the really unique features of your car.

The huge early MkVI brakes were OK, but the later ones are superb.  A better
conversion would be to the later arrangement (a proper dual-piston wheel
cylinder among othe differences - the early one is a single piston arrangement
with a tapered expander).  But again, the car would not be original.

Think hard about originality !!



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