Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi,
I've recently returned my '67 4 door to the road. As she had sat for quite a while most of the cylinders were in trouble so I treated her to a 'do all your brakes' kit...... I replaced all flexi hoses and put new front shoes in (rears were ok)... great I thought.

After 500 miles the brakes are still not up to the standard of my other saloon, when braking very hard I've had the rears lock but the fronts do not feel like they are upto efficiency.

The car pulls up evenly. no pulls to one side but you really have to stamp in the pedal to get the thing to stop! They just do not feel like they have any sharpness to them and the pedal has a slightly spoungy feel to it. I have bled the system within an inch of it's life and there is no sign of any air.......

The only thing I can think is different between my two cars is that I've used pattern cylinders on the recent re-build.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of thing?

I'd suggest you take the front drums off and look at the wear pattern on the shoes.
It may pay to file the leading shoes leading edge a bit.

However I'd say the lack of "sharpness" is typical and you need to drive with that in mind.

It might even be that the brakes are the same on both cars, but the shocks on the "better" one are not working as well so the front dips more when you brake, northing's simple .

Thank you. The pedals feel very different and the force needed for an equivalent stop is almost double I'd say. I'll have the dums off again and have a look

Assuming both cars have the 8" twin leading shoes brakes it's probably down to the (inferior) quality of the lining material on the shoes. It would be interesting to swop shoes over between cars - to see if the heaviness follows the shoes.

I had not thought of the shoes .... I (foolishly) assumed all shoes were reasonably similar in performance

BIG difference in performance between good shoes and all these cheap repro. rubbish! Probably the reason most cars are converted to discs and servos is that owners never drove on properly set up drums with high quality shoes...

I doubt you changed backplates (I can't see why you would) but if so, make sure you got them on the correct side!

Lining materials with Asbestos were banned some time ago. Since this change, most linings are poor by comparison.

Thank you for all your comments and suggestions. I thought on the matter a little more and decided to go for a new set of shoes on the front, replacing those from the 'cheap' brake kit.

I decided upon this as the rear pair from said 'kit' ended up on the rear of my other saloon , with much better brakes, a couple of weeks ago and I noticed on the way to work on a steep hill that the handbrake was very reluctant to bight hard... more evidence I thought that those shoes from the 'kit' were not up to scratch..... so.... I ordered a pair of Mintex

I have just come back from my test run..... and what a difference, it is like a different car. Already the brakes are sharp and responsive. I shall be throwing the others straight in the bin and writing a strongly worded email to the people that sold them to me!

Another lesson learned

Now to replace the rears with a pair of mintex

Great success.....