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Brakes

Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 8:24 am
by curbo
Are B brakes a direct swap onto an A car, i have been offered a project that came without its brakes and the seller tells me he added Brakes onto the A car

Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 8:58 am
by roy mawbey
The "A" and "B" cars both ran with drum brakes. The "C" has disc brakes. The "B" eventually had drums with sort of cooling fins around the circumference of the drum. I would say the drums could be interchangable as are the brake linings and slave cylinders. There are some differences to some of the metal brake lines on later "B"'s

If the project is complete up to the brake back plates it should be okay. I expect if there is something I have not noted someone will advise you here!

Interested in hearing more about your project is it RHD?

Roy

Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 10:12 am
by curbo
Hi Roy
No the 2 cars i am looking at are in the USA and are both LHD, the drums i have seen go on the car do have the cooling fins, just need to be 100% sure all is ok!

B brakes on A car

Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 12:38 pm
by Ren
I would say Yes and No. Depends on the spindles for the bearings. Look at the Stoddard catalogue. I think it gives you approx dates of change over and sizes etc for bearings and bushings. Measure front spindles.

My B had A drums on the front for many years until I recently put B drums back on. I did however have to replace the bearings and the right sides bushing.

Oh yes and as Mike said the back plates too. That was fun.

Hope this helps.

Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 12:44 pm
by davidppp
hello there.

Its normal to swop the uprights and spindles at the same time: the early ones are often bent anyway..and are too thin.

The front width is greater the rear the same..

Kind regards
david

Drum Brakes

Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:06 pm
by Mike Smith
`B` Drums do cool better than `A` drums but `A` drums are much less prone to problems

Be very wary about buying un-known `B` Drums they suffer from corrosion between the lining and the drum which then causes high spots and a horrible pedal feel
Machining the drum at this point is NOT the answer

For some reason `A` Drums do not suffer with this problem

If you do decide to put `B` Drums on an `A` you will also need to change the backplates