Today down at the Rotherham show, I visited to look at the vintage car rally. I had to park next to a group of young gentlemen privately parading their cars who appeared to have hearing problems. The car next to me was a 12 reg Fiesta which was very striking with polished black paintwork, blacked out windows, painted front calipers, huge bore exhaust and adorned with stickers advertising shock absorbers. It was very much a Lud style car and he must have have spent quite a bit. It must have been a base model blinged up to its ST equivalent but what stood out to me (although probably not to him) was the tiny drum brakes hiding behind the equally large stealth black dustbin lid alloys.
Now I've got nothing against drum brakes and they work just as good if not better but I thought all cars had discs all round for the last ten years? My last two and present mid-late 90's cars have had rear discs. I think discs just look better if they are available.
I do think that handbrakes aren't very good with discs from experience and handbrake turns aren't as good :)
Just a thought!
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>> It was very much a Lud style car and he must have have spent quite a bit. It must have been a base model blinged up to its ST equivalent but what stood out to me (although probably not to him) was the tiny drum brakes hiding behind the equally large stealth black dustbin lid alloys.
Phwoar! Just the kind of motor I really fancy! But alas, I haven't got Lud's sort of money.
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"Now I've got nothing against drum brakes and they work just as good if not better but I thought all cars had discs all round for the last ten years?"
It's a Ford !!! Just suprised they are not still fitting 6v electrics, vacuum wipers and 3 speed gearboxes
Last edited by: Skip on Sun 9 Sep 12 at 16:13
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There are complaints that some small light cars which have rear discs, should have stayed on drums. Reason being, the back brakes don't do a lot, and the problems that occur often are made more common by the fact the discs on these cars don't do enough.
A big car, yes, discs all round is fine.
But disc handbrakes can be a point of issue too. Much easier to make a drum hand brake, indeed, some cars with rear discs, also have drums, just for the handbrake (Subaru's used too, don't know if that is still the case).
Last edited by: Slidingpillar on Sun 9 Sep 12 at 16:28
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Come on now. Nothing wrong with drum brakes.
Vacuum wipers and three speed boxes had gone over 50 years ago with the 1959 Anglia.
You'll have to ask some of the more senior members about 6v electrics!
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Being one of the more senior members I seem to recall Ford was still churning out this agricultural stuff (maybe not the 6v electrics) in 1961.
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I bet in the USA, Ford are still supplying three speed autos!
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Didn't drums present fewer problems for handbrakes than discs? Most feeble handbrakes in the old days were down to poor maintenance or lack of adjustment. The only car that ever trundled off on me with the brake on was an Audi 100 that worked on the disc. My current car has little drums for the parking brake afaik, but I haven't checked.
Drums are Ok if big enough. My pal's 1928 Lagonda has very good brakes, at least for one stop! They're rod operated drums too. But they must be about 15" diameter.
Rusty little drums behind 3 spoke sporty wheels do look naff though. They belong behind hub caps.
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The mechanism to activate hand-operated rear discs tends to be less reliable than cable operated drums.
Most of my cars with rear discs have a wee drum inside the disc for the handbrake.
I think the last car I had with pure discs on the rear was a 2000 Civic and at 80k and 90k miles the handbrake needed adjusted to pass the MOT.
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Well designed, well maintained drum brakes are perfectly all right, indeed very good with better feel than discs in some way. But when they are getting long in the tooth it's another matter. Drivers get used to a double application, one to even the shoes up and the other to do the retardation. Better a little wriggle than a bit of a swerve.
My present car is the first one I've owned with four discs.
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Four discs on a small car can be snatchy, so a disc/drum set-up gives a good compromise of power and smoothness.
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I don't think the disc/drum tally counts for much feel - most snatchy cars I've driven are entirely down to the level of servo-assistance.
Drove an R5 and an R21 in the late 80s, early 90s and the brakes were hideously on-off.
And in extremis they weren't even that good - just over assisted.
My Forester XT required a fair amount of pressure which was initially disconcerting, but reassuringly there was plenty of stopping power - it just required more effort than many cars.
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>> Four discs on a small car can be snatchy,
Which was solved a good many years ago by the use of brake force distribution and balancing devices.
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the toyota prius sold in the states is exactly the same spec as UK ones, obviously the steering wheel is on the other side, apart from one thing...
in the US they have drum brakes at the back while here its discs
I seem to remember reading an interview with a senior bod at toyota who said they felt drum brakes were best for the car but that fashion dictates they need to be a disc in UK (not sure about rest of Europe?)
So the makers put on what the punters want
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All our fleet Fiestas have rear drums, the newest are 12 reg. They are prone to squealing and grinding a bit, it's something I always make sure my man with the spanner sorts out although I can usually fix it for him during delivery to the workshop by running a couple of miles with the handbrake half applied.
The Jowett has 9 inch drums all round with simple snail cam adjusters. They take a nice big Whitworth spanner so no silly rounding off. In good form, the brakes nearly rip the test rollers out of the garage floor.
Ted
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>> In good form, the brakes
>> nearly rip the test rollers out of the garage floor.
The original owner/builder of our bungalow had an inpection pit installed in the garage but he must have drawn the line at having test rollers put in!
;-)
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My 2010 plate Panda has drums at the rear, as does my dads 61 plate i10.
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I'm not a heavy braker. The rear discs do so little on the Outlander, they aren't hot when I get home and I have trouble keeping the rust off them - I brake with my foot on the gas when it gets noticeable. I conclude that rear discs are not about stopping, it must be fashion or cost - and as they put drums on base spec Fiestas it must be fashion.
Fronts are a different fish kettle.
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>> (not sure about rest of Europe?)
Discs on this one in NL.
Odd bit and wandering off-topic. UK spec ones come with a feature that a long press on the ODO button swaps the dash display from mph to kph and vice-versa. Continental ones don't.
A cheesy omission saving nothing as it's all done in software so.......WHY?
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My 1998 Prelude has now passed 120k and the handbrake was last adjusted at 40k. It shows no sign of needing it.
Oh, and incidentally, I always press the button so the ratchet is unworn as well.
Last edited by: Mike Hannon on Mon 10 Sep 12 at 09:34
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While I accept well maintained drum brakes perform adequately, I'm personally glad to see the back of the infernal things.
The self adjuster systems, however they were designed, never seemed to be able to manage a complete shoe wear cycle before needing some sort of manual intervention, and reassembling the multitude of springs and levers was a fiddly, knuckle grazing nightmare. I have horrible memories of easing reluctant springs into place with a pair of water pump pliers, accompanied by much creaking and squeaking from the assembly to remind you just how much tension that spring was under, and how much skin it was going to remove from your knuckles when it inevitably slipped out of the pliers just before the end slotted home.
As for Ford, they (and probably others) insisted you separate the rear hub bearing
to get the drum off!! Just to change a set of linings, or to manually tweak the adjusters for the umpteenth time.
Yeuch..
Last edited by: DP on Mon 10 Sep 12 at 11:02
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>> While I accept well maintained drum brakes perform adequately, I'm personally glad to see the back of the infernal things.
Amen to all of that DP. Couldn't agree more. Fluid leaking out of wheel cylinders... brake dust and blood in the wheel bearing... etc etc. And in use, discs seldom suffer from fade unlike most drum systems when used hard.
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Having experienced brake fade in a Rover 16 and a Rover 75 (the original not the modern carp), both fitted with drums all round , I have nothing but admiration for those who drove drum braked cars in Grand Prixs.
The smell, the realisation that no matter how hard you press that the car is NOT going to slow down and - on the hydraulic braked 75 vs the rods of the 16 - the sinking feeling as the brake pedal touches the floor as the fluid boils - rid me of any yearning for the "good old days".
Don't mind about drum rears as they do little work. But early disk rears were a pia... as they still are with Citroens whose engineers think that steel in contact with aluminium on the rear hubs is not going to affect the car in later life. Cue Xantias, XMs BXs and (I believe but check!) C6s having rear wheels whose camber increased with age due to inter metal corrosion due to galvanic action forcing the tops of the wheels from the vertical.
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>> as they still are with Citroens whose engineers think that steel in
>> contact with aluminium on the rear hubs is not going to affect the car in
>> later life. Cue Xantias, XMs BXs and (I believe but check!) C6s having rear wheels
>> whose camber increased with age due to inter metal corrosion due to galvanic action forcing
>> the tops of the wheels from the vertical.
>>
Not sure about the latest C5s, but the last generation had this problem too. It's down to the fact that the suspension can rise and sink with the handbrake applied. Although I'm sure if they threw enough money at it they could find a better solution.
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Rear discs act like the front discs when going in reverse! - so will then be more efficient. ;-)
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>> Not sure about the latest C5s, but the last generation had this problem too. It's
>> down to the fact that the suspension can rise and sink with the handbrake applied.
>> Although I'm sure if they threw enough money at it they could find a better
>> solution.
On the Xantia and BX the handbrake works on the front discs. Some early Xants had a tendency to run away though I don't think a cause was fully established.
The Berlingo's works on the rear drum. Thoroughly effective but quite odd when movement of the trailing arms causes a lurch when parking on a slope.
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>> movement of the trailing arms causes a lurch when parking on a slope.
French suspension design, with long-range comfort on variable roads a priority, still uses trailing arms and long-travel suspension to good effect. Citroen for ages used a sort of four-legged system with leading arms at the front. It also usually had a handbrake that worked on the front wheels too. So odd heaving or sinking of one or other end of the car when applying the handbrake on slopes, or while the car is still rolling, is a feature of French motoring.
It's my favourite suspension philosophy for bread-and-butter road cars and as safe and capable as any other.
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Drum brakes - Armel Coussine
