No. 3 and 8 photos. Alfa Romeo spider front brakes...lol
Photography by J.G. Pasterjak
[Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the April 2007 issue of Grassroots Motorsports.]
Out of all of the systems in a car, the brakes have to be the most important. A car that can’t come to a safe, sure stop has no business being on the road or track.
While today’s cars come from the factory with solid, capable binders, that’s not to say that everything parked in our stables is so well equipped. Some older cars weren’t quite as blessed from the manufacturer, while others have had their brakes mangled and neglected over the years—sometimes by a goodhearted previous owner trying to make things better, and other times by someone who was too cheap to do things correctly.
Whatever the cause for the diminished performance, we have 10 tips that will rejuvenate and maximize almost any braking system. In most cases, this work can be done in a day with basic hand tools.
It’s very important to have the right pads and shoes fitted to your car. They have to be matched to the way you drive and how much heat your brakes generate.
If you fit racing brakes to a street car, you can expect worse-than-stock performance from them—they’ll never get hot enough to generate the necessary friction for optimum stopping power. Likewise, street pads on a race car will overheat quickly (even catch fire) and won’t do the job, either. And bargain pads are anything but a bargain—they often work poorly no matter how they’re used.
If anything is leaking in your braking system, fix it immediately. Make a visual inspection of all brake components and look for wet areas—you should find none. If you can’t find leaks but you are losing fluid, you haven’t looked hard enough. The fluid is leaking somewhere—it doesn’t evaporate.
There are a lot of ways to bleed brakes, and some are better than others. We’ve always preferred the two-person way: One person goes to each wheel and bleeds the brake according to the shop manual instructions, while another person works the pedal. Some people prefer power bleeders. Either way, if your brakes aren’t bled properly, you’ll always have a soft, spongy pedal with too much travel.
If a car has had at least one previous owner, assume that someone with a lack of mechanical ability has touched the brakes. It’s very common to find incorrectly installed or assembled brake parts. With drum brakes, it’s common to see linkages or shoes installed backward. With disc brakes, calipers sometimes get switched side to side. Check a manual or a trusted Web site to make sure your brakes are correctly put together.
Many older cars have at least two drum brakes, and many are not self-adjusting. After making sure the adjusters are not frozen, adjust the brakes so they just start to drag. If you get them too tight, you’ll know in the first few hundred feet of your first drive. If they’re too loose, you’ll find that your pedal goes too far to the floor. Properly adjusted drum brakes account for about 75 percent of the pedal’s feel, so spend some time on this.
Your parking brake works, doesn’t it? It’s also called the emergency brake for a good reason, especially on single-circuit brake systems, so make sure it not only works, but it is adjusted properly and releases properly. Stuck parking brakes can quickly make brakes feel and act funny, and they wear things out more quickly.
A visual inspections of flexible brake hoses is pretty easy—look for leaks and cracks, discarding any hose with either.
Sometimes hoses will swell as they age. To check for this, feel the hose as an assistant steps hard on the pedal. If you can feel much swelling at all, get a new hose. Another good test is to clamp each hose shut while an assistant steps on the pedal. If the pedal is much harder with the hose clamped, it is probably time for a new hose.
By the way, always replace hoses in pairs if they are installed in pairs. For example, don’t replace just one front hose—the car will likely pull to one side because of differing amounts of compliance in each front line.
A lot of the brake pedal travel and feel is dictated by compliance in the system. After you’ve checked that all the components are not leaking and are in good shape, look for wear (and therefore compliance) in the pedal/master cylinder linkage and in the rear brake/parking brake linkages.
A small bit of wear in any of these can translate into an inch or more of pedal travel, plus a sloppy feeling. When you repair or reassemble these linkages, make sure to grease them appropriately for smooth operation.
The surface finish on your rotors and drums is another important aspect to stopping power. Obviously, grooves are bad, but so is glazing. New parts or a trip to a shop that can put a good surface finish on your parts will help get you the stopping power you need.
While most people seem to think a big brake kit is a great idea, it’s sometimes not necessary, especially if your car runs on the street. Many people jump to a big-brake kit before they even maximize their stock setup.
If you can lock up your wheels and tires, you don’t need bigger brakes—you need stickier tires. Once you’ve got the stickiest tire you can fit, then you can start thinking about bigger brakes.
Next, consider whether you can lock your brakes up when they’re cold, and how many stops it takes to induce fade. If you can induce fade, then you may want to experiment with different pads (or shoes) before jumping on the big-brake bandwagon. Remember, big brakes usually weigh more than the pieces they are replacing, and weight, especially rotating unsprung weight, is something we usually want to avoid.
Before you accuse your car of having badly designed brakes, make sure you’ve looked at the preceding areas. Your car should stop straight and within a reasonable distance. The pedal should move no more than a couple of inches. Don’t accept the “it’s an older car, what do you expect?” excuse for bad brakes—make sure they’re in good shape before considering upgrades.
No. 3 and 8 photos. Alfa Romeo spider front brakes...lol
It has always amazed me when I take an older car and put a new set of good quality rotors and carbon ceramic street pads.
My 2007 Saab had decent stock drakes but after swapping in zimmerman rotors and the above pads I can easily stop the car with light pressure from my big toe.
The technology improvements in stock replacement brake pads in just the last 10 years is amazing.
What are peoples opinion of ceramic brake pads? I just purchased a set for my old MGA. It's not on the road yet so I haven't actually tried them but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
I have found that new rotors are very important. I bed them in by getting them very hot by making a series or aggressive stops followed by dragging them while driving getting them even hotter. Then drive the car like normal letting the cool. Once down to a normal temp I park the car and let them cool completely. Every vehicle I do this way has spectacular brakes the next time I drive it and they get better after a couple more drives.
Hammertime!
Flynlow said:Hammertime!
Disappointed this was not the first post.
dean1484 said:I have found that new rotors are very important. I bed them in by getting them very hot by making a series or aggressive stops followed by dragging them while driving getting them even hotter. Then drive the car like normal letting the cool. Once down to a normal temp I park the car and let them cool completely. Every vehicle I do this way has spectacular brakes the next time I drive it and they get better after a couple more drives.
How long is the dragging while driving portion of this exercise &then driving like normal part....overall time spent???
MondoMike said:What are peoples opinion of ceramic brake pads?
They are fine as long as you treat them like Mogwai. Don't let them get wet,
Most of my scary "brakes are not working!!!" moments are related to ceramic pads and wet-weather condtitons.
Personally, every set of ceramic pads I've worked with have been garbage. Yeah, they don't dust much (and the dust is hard to see anyway), but they don't like heat (I've seen a few sets crack and others glaze very easily). And none of them have stopped all that well in general. I'll gladly take more aggressive pads that are harder on rotors and make more dust because they actually work.
Ceramic pads are great - they produce very little dust and assuming that you select a suitable compound they have excellent fade characteristics. I've had excellent service with the EBC Redstuff material, but if you want great street performance from pads that aren't ceramic, the Porterfield R4-S are very good as well. Neither are race pads; both have significantly better initial grab and heat performance than lesser pads for the street.
On most cars, big brake kits are really big ego kits. It is comical to see the people that want them for the street trying to rationalize how they ar 'necessary' when drivers running the same cars in SCCA with stock brakes at far higher speeds and producing far more heat than any conceivable street use could possibly produce have no issues at all with them.
Mike, the MGA has limited pad selection as that Lockheed caliper wasn't widely used, so you have to look a bit to find decent pads. Hopefully the ceramic pads you found are good ones.
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