Morris Minor Owners Club

I've got a 1971 Traveller and have decided it's time to convert the brakes to disc brakes. Can anyone advise of the best place to purchase these from? I don't have any mechanical experience and so will need to purchase 'off the shelf' brakes which I can get fitted at a garage. I really need some that I can order over the internet or get on next day delivery as my drum brakes are on their last legs. I've never felt totally confident driving with drum brakes and today they nearly didn't work at all - I had to go right down to second gear and press my foot hard on the brake pedal to get it to even think about stopping! I don't think I'll be driving the car again until I can get the brakes changed. Any suggestions gratefully received.

All the specialists will sell you a kit of parts. I'm not (as a moderator) allowed to recommend one, but have a look at ESM, Bull Motif and the others as advertised in Minor Matters

Be advised also that there is a kit out there which appears to be bolt-on but does require parts to be machined and other parts added (I will not make the mistake of mentioning the name again ).
Ask the right questions of the retailer because the garage that fits it will need to know this information before they start.

It's not just a 'bolt on' modification. Most disc brake suppliers suggest that the master cylinder be dismantled and a little seal be removed. This is definitely NOT for the inexperienced! In addition - some find that discs make the brake pedal too heavy and so a servo has to be fitted (more expense!) - and this is not straightforward either because of the location of the Minor master cylinder in the chassis leg under your left foot. Many also suggest fitting a remote brake fluid reservoir (more expense!) - not too difficult to fit - but many report leaks. A very straight forward brake improvement - which IS 'bolt on' is to fit the larger drum brakes from the front of a Wolseley 1500. These are 9" diameter with wider shoes and make a huge difference. Fitting is only an hour or so for the experienced - but allow a morning - snag is, they are hard to find now - but usually only ~ £60 for a complete set in good condition. If your car is the early 948cc model with 7" front drums at the moment - you will get a big improvement just by fitting the later 8" front drums from a 1098cc engined car. Again these are easy bolt-on, and much easier to get hold of. In the meantime - it would not cost very much to just sort out the brakes you have - certainly much less than the cost of a major accident repair!!

Well as jrowe clearly states he is asking a garage to perform the conversion for him. It is true, as we are led to believe ,that the upgrade to the Wolesley brakes is worth while ans a simple swap for the Minor ones. It is very misleading and unhelpfull for BM to riducule what is a reletivley simple conversion to disc brakes. Kits come with full instructions for fitting and if read by BM he would realise that they are 'bolt on' as in not needing welding. Yes the process is involved and requires a fair amount of work but it is pretty staight forward, and the results are beneficial. The problems you may encounter with one of the kits are leaky header tanks and calipers which need to be worked on and shimmed to fit. the other kit just bolts straight on and has never had a leaking header tank. A servo is not obligatory at all and depends entirely on the feel you require at the pedal. The main point to consider with the disc upgrade is ease of fit, quality of components and lastly price. Do your research ask on here and ask the folk who fit them. More importantly talk to the folk who design and build the kits, however this can only be done with only one Ford disc kit producer. as all of the other resalers are just that, and not the designers.
It is very important to understand the work required to fit disc kits correctly, it is very straight forward given the correct easy to fit components.

bmcecosse wrote:A very straight forward brake improvement - which IS 'bolt on' is to fit the larger drum brakes from the front of a Wolseley 1500. These are 9" diameter with wider shoes and make a huge difference. Fitting is only an hour or so for the experienced - but allow a morning - snag is, they are hard to find now - but usually only ~ £60 for a complete set in good condition.

I've been looking out for a set of these here and on eBay for months and not seen any. I've recently expanded my search to include Riley 1500s too but they appear to be equally rare.

In fact I think I'll try posting a wanted ad on here in case somebody has a set they don't need lying around in their garage...

BTW I know somebody who recently fitted the vented disc kit from Bull Motif without a servo and he sounds fairly happy with them (just complaining a bit about the hassle involved in removing the valve from the master cylinder). He says they were very spongy at first but after a couple of days use they bedded themselves in and are working fine now.

Jonathon - I didn't 'ridicule' anything - and I think it's unfair of you to suggest I did - I thought I gave a very balanced view of what's involved. The part I said was not for the inexperienced was only the master cylinder strip down. I'm sure the actual disc brake fitting is very straightforward - and do-able by anyone with a few simple spanners.

Slightly OT but what about Marina drum brakes ?
According to my wheel cylinder data book they were fitted even up to the Ital model / vans / pick-up's.
The backplate will bolt straight onto Minor upright as it's already know the caliper mount will.
That would leave drums which would need redrilling to Minor PCD.
I've done no research so regard this as a passing thought and potential altenative to the Wolsley / Riley option.

Paul Humphries.

Harsh maybe, but the constant reference to problems of only one kit, tends to tar the opinion of all disc kits unless you are specific.
You also constantly refer to 'more expense!', which seems to imply that, this is not explained to the customer at the time of research. The header tank,m/c mod, and optional servo are not hidden costs but just parts required to perform the conversion.
Your assumption that you gave a balanced opinion of what is involved is correct, but as usual your opinion, on the merits of discs v's drums is far from balanced. No mention of disc performance ,ease of maintenance nor actual experience of having even fitted one of the available kits.

Hiya jrowe,

Do you have a garage near you which you have in mind to do the work? If so, and if you have a good communicating relationship with them, it might be a good idea if you started by explaining to them what it is you require from your braking system. They should then be able to tell you what set-up you will need, and what to ask for when you are calling round the various parts suppliers. Once you've found a supplier you think is right, you could then get your garage to give them a call, just to make sure that each side understands what's involved - your garage will be able to ask technical questions which might not even occur to you. Then you can go ahead and order the parts with as much confidence as possible!

Incidentally I don't know how famliar you are with the various brake modifications which are possible, so it might be worth mentioning that most people who fit disc brakes do so only on the front wheels, retaining the original drums on the rear wheels. That's the system I've got. I'm a beginner mechanic (ie I know almost nothing and plague message board members for information ) so I can't explain to you why that is considered to be a good system, but I'm hoping to learn more over the next couple of months as lovely experienced people help me to sort out my brakes (I'm restoring my van).

I'm lucky in that I'm quite close (an hour) to a good Minor parts supplier, East Sussex Minors - I like them because I can call them and they will spend as much time as necessary listening to my questions and explaining what they think might work for my needs. And I can drive over and pick the stuff up, which I personally prefer because I like to meet people who are selling me stuff, and check it over before taking it away. But I'm just lucky in that respect.

I'm also lucky in that I'm just shameless in asking people for advice - you could try sending PMs to people on here who sound as though they are talking what you consider to be sense. But of course the message board isn't the repository of all wisdom (it just seems like it ), so you could also try asking Rob Thomasson's advice (I assume you are an MMOC member?) - he was very helpful to me recently, and giving technical advice like this to club members is his job. He responded fast to my emails.

Best of luck and keep asking questions!

wibble

alex_holden wrote:BTW I know somebody who recently fitted the vented disc kit from Bull Motif

Do you know which kit they fitted? They sell two Ford-based vented disc kits, one at £320 and one at £500.

JimK wrote:

alex_holden wrote:BTW I know somebody who recently fitted the vented disc kit from Bull Motif

Do you know which kit they fitted? They sell two Ford-based vented disc kits, one at £320 and one at £500.

He said he thought he paid £300 for it. Here is a picture if that's any help:


Oh, the other snag he hit was that he needed to obtain a set of wheel spacers that weren't included in the kit.

This is the OB kit, now distributed through ESM. The kit does require a spacer, which is included in our kit.

Thanks Alex. That fills in enough clues:

£300ish
The hub is aluminium.
You don't actually get everthing you need in the kit.

That tells me which kit it is. Steel wheelstuds in an alloy hub? Add salt water to the mix and I'd want to be checking that regularly. I think I'll start working on the missus to get authorisation for the more expensive kit.

She's expressed unease at the homemade Fiesta brakes idea (don't you just love it when our womenfolk have such confidence in us?) so I'll point out that the alternative is half a thousand quid...

paulhumphries wrote:Slightly OT but what about Marina drum brakes ?
According to my wheel cylinder data book they were fitted even up to the Ital model / vans / pick-up's.
The backplate will bolt straight onto Minor upright as it's already know the caliper mount will.
That would leave drums which would need redrilling to Minor PCD.

Interesting idea, but I wonder if the drum depth and the diameter of the centre hole is the same? If not I guess you need to use the Marina hubs too, which would also need redrilling in order to keep the Minor wheels. And if you're going to go to that much trouble you might as well fit Marina discs (apart from the cost/availability)...

alex_holden wrote: Oh, the other snag he hit was that he needed to obtain a set of wheel spacers that weren't included in the kit.

Tsk

I have developed a habit of asking repeatedly, "Is this everything I will need to do the whole job?" and, "Are there any other bits I might conceivably need which aren't in this box?"!!!

It is a bit daft to sell someone a kit which is missing a part which they will need.

JimK wrote:I think I'll start working on the missus to get authorisation for the more expensive kit.

Don't you already have discs Jim? Are you upgrading from solid to vented?

alex_holden wrote:Don't you already have discs Jim? Are you upgrading from solid to vented?

Saloon has Marina discs, Trav has servoed drums.

I'm much harder on brakes than Wifey and the saloon is going to be very much faster than the Trav. Vague plan is to shift the solid discs to the Trav and get some more serious brakes for the saloon.

Not sure when that will happen as there are other things I need to buy first.

By the way: Is it me, or is Fenchurch oscillating between colour and greyscale?

jonathon wrote:This is the OB kit

What does OB stand for, Jonathon?

JimK wrote:

alex_holden wrote:Don't you already have discs Jim? Are you upgrading from solid to vented?

Saloon has Marina discs, Trav has servoed drums.

Ah, I see.

JimK wrote:By the way: Is it me, or is Fenchurch oscillating between colour and greyscale?

It's because the sun keeps randomly breaking through the clouds and lighting the garage up sufficiently for the camera to switch out of low light mode. At night the garage is lit only by an 8W flourescent light bulb.