Morris Minor Owners Club

These photos show three different front drums and shoes side by side:


Late Minor 8" (Lockheed); Wolseley 1500 9" (Lockheed); and Riley 1.5 9" (Girling).

I'm planning to drive Fenchurch for a bit on the standard brakes, then try out the others and see which I prefer. Both types are theoretically an easy bolt-on upgrade, you don't need to remove the pressure retention valve from the master cylinder or fit a remote fluid reservoir, and they have the correct stud spacing for standard Minor wheels. In theory the Rileys should have the most resistance to fading, but the Wolseleys ought to give a lighter pedal because the wheel cylinders have larger bores.

Relined (exchange) shoes for the Wolseleys and the Rileys are roughly the same price, but they're both more expensive than a new set of standard Minor shoes.

Interestingly the friction material on the Wolseley shoes looks very different to that on the Rileys (not just the colour but the texture is different too).

New Old Stock or rebuilt Riley wheel cylinders seem to be very expensive compared to new Minor ones. New Wolseley cylinders aren't terribly cheap either, but the Wolseley backplates can apparently be modified to accept Minor cylinders instead.

If you have the riley brakes, then they would be my recommendation.

Pete

Mine too, wanna sell the Wolseys to me?

Not yet, but I might be persuaded to part with the spare set after I've tried them both and decided which I prefer

Geeeeessssssss. This really shows the difference in the Riley brakes compared to the Wolseley brakes. Well done Alex! I find the W brakes plenty adequate, and way better than the hopeless 8" drums - but these R brakes look big enough to stop a truck!

Te he.

The 'old' friction lining probably has asbestos in it - and I find they work so much better than the modern 'camel dung' linings !

I've returned all the old shoes for exchange - the Riley ones seemed a bit oily, and the Wolseley ones were covered in rust, so I didn't want to risk using them. Both of the sets in the lower picture are relined ones that I just bought last week, and I wouldn't have thought either of them would contain asbestos since AFAIK it's been banned since 1986. If you look closely at the brown material on the Wolseley shoes it has a sort of regular honeycomb structure, but the fibres in the green material on the Riley shoes are arranged as random flakes like in chipboard.

In the good old days - one merely used one's handkerchief to wipe away the asbestos dust when servicing the brakes...... (after taking a deep breath and blowing away the surplus!)

Nowadays we just use an airline!

can anyone explain (preferably in picture form) how to modify The backplates to accept Minor cylinders?

I don't think asbestos was banned in '86 Alex as my mate's 1991 Landy has a sticker in the engine bay warning that it contains asbestos. I've seen 90s Minis too with exactly the same sticker.

Ah, it seems I was wrong. Brown and blue asbestos were banned in 1986 but white asbestos was still legal until 1999.

To fit Minor cylinders (only difference - slightly longer) to Wolseley backplates - the large slot in the plate needs to be extended downwards slightly, which takes it into the mounting hole. This hole then needs re-drilling slightly lower down to suit the Minor cylinder. I chose to weld up the section where the old hole had been - but frankly I really think it will be fine if left as is, if you don't have handy welding gear..

Tell you what Alex.
To save time testing them - put the 8" on one side and the Riley on the other then you can test both at once!

That might give "interesting" handling

If you really want interesting stick one of the Riley's on the back across from one of the original 7" drums.

Real fun on rainy days

If you like Alex I could bring my motor round and you could see for yourself what the Rileys are like.

Thanks for the offer Ian, but I want to try driving all three types for a while and compare them.

Just noticed this while I was looking through the brake parts at lunchtime. The Wolseley 1500 front drum adjusters have a larger cam (snail) than the 8" Minor front drums. They have a maximum adjustment of 0.85" vs 0.75". If you try to use Minor adjusters with Wolseley brakes it will go together OK but you won't be able to use the full thickness of the brake shoes.