Wolseley 1500 9" Brake Drums Availability

[philthehill]

They are not as big as you may think.
They are Girling to match the Girling drum brakes fitted to the front of the Riley 1.5.
They have much better adjusters and cylinders than the Lockheed brakes.
Several of the Sebring Sprites had them fitted on the rear and they never suffered any problems.

[svenedin]

Side by side comparison of a Wolseley 1500 9" drum and a Morris Minor 7" drum. In actual fact the Morris drum is a rear drum as my car is a later car with 8" front brakes but older Minors had 7" brakes all round.

Stephen

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[philthehill]

Well you can even things up a bit for the drum brakes all round when fitting the Wolseley or Riley 8" rear drum brakes. You return to the status quo ratios i.e. 8" Front & 7" Rear against 9" Front & 8" Rear.
The Wolseley and Riley brakes drums are admittedly a bit of a lump but that is all they are just a lump but a more efficient lump than the Minor 7" rear drum brakes. A bonus is that you can use your old 8" Minor front brake drums as replacements for the 8" Wolseley rear brake drums as they are the same part and part number.
To me fitting the 8" Wolseley or Riley rear brakes is a no brainer.

[svenedin]

Well you can even things up a bit for the drum brakes all round when fitting the Wolseley or Riley 8" rear drum brakes. You return to the status quo ratios i.e. 8" Front & 7" Rear against 9" Front & 8" Rear.
The Wolseley and Riley brakes drums are admittedly a bit of a lump but that is all they are just a lump but a more efficient lump than the Minor 7" rear drum brakes. A bonus is that you can use your old 8" Minor front brake drums as replacements for the 8" Wolseley rear brake drums as they are the same part and part number.
To me fitting the 8" Wolseley or Riley rear brakes is a no brainer.

Yes agreed. I'm on the look out for a rear set of 8" backplates. In the meantime, I have more than enough to be getting on with!

Stephen

[mowogg]

Stephen

Not sure if you have seen this from a previous post on the board -the table in the thread gives the braking ratios front to back with different set ups

viewtopic.php?p=634773&hilit=brake+design#p634773

As an aside i have run 1500 front brakes on a car and a van -i have modified these to take Minor cylinders which is quite easy to do. My set is currently fitted to the van with 3/4 rear cylinders. Vans are very light at the back so this ensures I do not get rear end lock up

John

[svenedin]

Stephen

Not sure if you have seen this from a previous post on the board -the table in the thread gives the braking ratios front to back with different set ups

viewtopic.php?p=634773&hilit=brake+design#p634773

As an aside i have run 1500 front brakes on a car and a van -i have modified these to take Minor cylinders which is quite easy to do. My set is currently fitted to the van with 3/4 rear cylinders. Vans are very light at the back so this ensures I do not get rear end lock up

John

Thank you. No I have never seen that table and this is excellent information.

My set up is later Minor Master cylinder 13/16" with Wolseley 1500 9" front brakes and Wolseley original bore size cylinders, 0.8" and standard late Minor 7" rear brakes. Reading the table this gives a front rear ratio of 71/29% (which is very close to "ideal") but an increase in pedal pressure required from 118 to 131 Lbft. I am a bit surprised about that actually. I had incorrectly assumed that I would need less pedal force to achieve a 1g deceleration rather than more.....However, this compares to 135 Lbft for Marina front discs, 13/16" MC and standard later Minor rear brakes (without a servo of course) and 142 Lbft with the original Minor 7" drums all round.

Stephen

[svenedin]

Drums cleaned up. Ready for painting. Almost no discernible wear at all. Backplates in paint stripper.

Stephen

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[svenedin]

Bad news on the brakes. I stripped the paint off the backplates and noticed they have been welded and modified to take Minor brake cylinders. Not being familiar with Wolseley cylinders, I didn't realise that the backplates had been bodged until the paint was stripped. According to the table on the forum this modification leads to a very front biased braking system (77/23). Even Roy, the original owner of these brakes admitted on this forum that it was unsatisfactory and caused the front wheels to lock. His postings suggested he had two sets of Wolseley brakes and had gone back to an unmolested set-up which turns out to be inaccurate. I am now looking for a pair of Wolseley 1500 brake backplates that have not been altered.........extremely unlikely to find those. I am certainly not fitting what I have. I think my car has successfully fought back against being modified and it looks like it will stay original for ever now!

Stephen

[mowogg]

It sounds more likely they were changed back to Wolselsy. The minor cylinders need a longer slot. You don't need to weld them to covert to minor cylinders, just the reverse the change

Did they have cylinders fitted when you got them? Are you able to measure them.

[svenedin]

It sounds more likely they were changed back to Wolselsy. The minor cylinders need a longer slot. You don't need to weld them to covert to minor cylinders, just the reverse the change

Did they have cylinders fitted when you got them? Are you able to measure them.

No they have definitely been modified to take Minor cylinders. I have some new Wolseley cylinders and the slot in backplate is too long and the top bolt hole is in the wrong place.

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[philthehill]

Sorry to hear that.
Here is a couple of photos of how the Wolseley 1500 front brake back plate with cylinders should look.
Note the position of the larger of the two cylinder mounting bolts.
You could weld up the slot/mounting bolt hole and re-drill the mounting hole and reprofile the cylinder slot.
The problem is not insurmountable.

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[svenedin]

Sorry to hear that.
Here is a couple of photos of how the Wolseley 1500 front brake back plate with cylinders should look.
Note the position of the larger of the two cylinder mounting bolts.
You could weld up the slot/mounting bolt hole and re-drill the mounting hole and reprofile the cylinder slot.
The problem is not insurmountable.
Wolseley 1500 brakes 3.jpg
Wolseley 1500 brakes 6.jpg

Thank you Phil. No it's not unsurmountable but it's way beyond what I can do. I'd have to find an engineering company to do it and then that's probably too much expense and hassle.


Morris cylinder left, Wolseley cylinder right.

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Wolseley cylinder showing slot too long and only the lateral top/side bolt hole lines up. Bottom bolt hole has been moved.

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[philthehill]

Get a welding company to fill the void and then fettle the holes yourself. I am certain you can do that & you have enough skill and confidence to achieve it.
I would hate to think that you are disposing of the parts for what I would consider a small and inexpensive task. Remember those parts are not readily available off the shelf.
Phil

[svenedin]

Get a welding company to fill the void and then fettle the holes yourself. I am certain you can do that & you have enough skill and confidence to achieve it.
I would hate to think that you are disposing of the parts for what I would consider a small and inexpensive task. Remember those parts are not readily available off the shelf.
Phil

Don’t worry. I am definitely not disposing of anything!

Stephen

[philthehill]

I am very glad to hear that

[svenedin]

I am very glad to hear that

In fact I dropped the backplates off at a machine shop/metal fabricator this lunchtime and I am waiting to hear what they say.

Stephen

[philthehill]

[svenedin]

As luck would have it I have secured a pair of Wolseley 1500 8" rear backplates. These use the same drum as the Minor 8" front drum, same shoes, same adjuster. Different cylinder of course as this has to do the handbrake as well. As Phil has said, the Wolseley rear brake backplates have to be swapped side to side and the cylinder end of the metal brake pipe needs a different flare and threaded connector (thread is different). This is because the Minor cylinder has only one entry port and so uses a banjo to connect both the metal brake pipe and the bleed nipple. The Wolseley cylinder has 2x entry ports. I will have new Kunifer brake pipes made up. I also notice that Wolseley rear brakes do not use any shoe retainer. No more Beehive springs. Hurray!

Stephen

[philthehill]

Not quite sure what you mean about two entry ports. Please enlarge.
The Wolseley 1500 rear wheel cylinders only have the pipe entry port and the bleed nipple port.
You have the 'T' union on the axle diff housing and a single pipe runs direct to each cylinder.
The threads of the pipe unions 3/8" UNF are different to the Minor and the Minor pipes cannot be used as the flare on the cylinder end of the pipe is different.

[svenedin]

All I mean is that the Wolseley rear cylinder has two ports whereas the Minor cylinder has one. The Minor cylinder needs a banjo and banjo bolt in order to connect the brake pipe and the bleed nipple. The Wolseley cylinder has the brake pipe and bleed nipple in separate ports.

Stephen