Morris Minor Owners Club

Just finished the back end job on my station wagon and fitted the road wheels ready to take it off the axle stands, and realised just how tiny the brake drums are! I have another car where you'd struggle to fit a finger between the drum and wheel.

I’d be really interested to see a similar pic with weight on the wheels. The gap between the bump stop and chassis is huge compared to mine.

The 7" diameter rear brakes are as big as they need to be relative to the power output of the engine.
Even with the 1098cc engine there is no requirement to up the dimeter of the rear brakes.
Only when you get to higher engine power outputs and heavier vehicle weight do you need to consider fitting larger rear brakes and improving the front brakes.
The Wolseley 1500 and Riley 1.5 had 8" diameter rear brakes fitted as the engines gave out more power and the vehicles are heavier. They also had larger brakes on the front.
My own Minor has been fitted with Marina 9" disks on the front and Wolseley 1500 8" drum brakes on the rear. The larger rear brakes have been fitted mainly to balance the brake efficiency so as to provide nice straight line braking under very heavy braking.

Yes the unassisted 7" drums front and rear are fine and I have never had any cause for complaint.

The small brakes are fine as long as they’re in good condition. A lot of Minors with little use or long storage have sticking wheel cylinders.

Like everything else, the brakes need regular maintainance to remain efficient. The rumours that circulate in certain circles about Minor brakes being 'poor' usually originate from the experience of poorly set-up and badly maintained braking systems.

I never said the brakes were bad. Just tiny.

myoldjalopy wrote: ↑Fri Dec 24, 2021 1:30 pm Like everything else, the brakes need regular maintainance to remain efficient. The rumours that circulate in certain circles about Minor brakes being 'poor' usually originate from the experience of poorly set-up and badly maintained braking systems.

I think there’s also a bit of a shock when coming from a ‘modern’ with servo assist to having to press harder, but like JJ I have never had problems with them

JOWETTJAVELIN wrote: ↑Fri Dec 24, 2021 1:49 pm I never said the brakes were bad. Just tiny.

Quite so, sir. I was merely responding to ianmack's comment about sticking wheel cylinders.

Mick Lynch wrote: ↑Fri Dec 24, 2021 4:25 pm

myoldjalopy wrote: ↑Fri Dec 24, 2021 1:30 pm Like everything else, the brakes need regular maintainance to remain efficient. The rumours that circulate in certain circles about Minor brakes being 'poor' usually originate from the experience of poorly set-up and badly maintained braking systems.

I think there’s also a bit of a shock when coming from a ‘modern’ with servo assist to having to press harder, but like JJ I have never had problems with them

Its a bit of a shock whenever I have to drive a 'modern' coming from my Minor!

In my experience one of the causes of sticking brakes is the fad of adjusting the brakes so that they are only just allow the drum to rotate.
Having the brakes adjusted so they only just allow the drum to rotate does not allow the brake cylinder pistons to travel as they should to keep them free.
Having the brake shoes well clear of the drums allows that extra bit of travel that reduces the chances of the cylinder piston sticking.
If the car is being stored then back the adjusters right off and exercise the brake pedal frequently. That not only exercises the wheel cylinders but also the master cylinder.

[/quote]
Its a bit of a shock whenever I have to drive a 'modern' coming from my Minor!
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Even worse when you have to fix a "modern" compared to a Minor ......

Even worse when you have to fix a "modern" compared to a Minor ....

Yes indeed,the last three moderns I've had and needing rear discs,also needed (NOT NEEDED) rear hubs and bearings because the disc comes as part of the hub, ridiculous and extremely wastful.

kennatt wrote: ↑Sat Dec 25, 2021 8:11 am

Even worse when you have to fix a "modern" compared to a Minor ....

Yes indeed,the last three moderns I've had and needing rear discs,also needed (NOT NEEDED) rear hubs and bearings because the disc comes as part of the hub, ridiculous and extremely wastful.

You are right, it is extremely wasteful, someone locally has a little Diahatsu (I think it is), the timing chain went, surprised it doesn't have a belt as they all seem to these days, but anyway the parts came to £450 as there were a whole load of plastic parts glued into the engine so all had to be broken out and cleaned up immaculately before the new parts could be glued back in. Hate to think what the labour charge would be on top of all that.....nice the Minor doesn't have too many plastic bits!

In my experience one of the causes of sticking brakes is the fad of adjusting the brakes so that they are only just allow the drum to rotate.
Having the brakes adjusted so they only just allow the drum to rotate does not allow the brake cylinder pistons to travel as they should to keep them free.
Having the brake shoes well clear of the drums allows that extra bit of travel that reduces the chances of the cylinder piston sticking.

When I was first learning how to set up my Minors drums properly, not long after I got Abby, my first Minor, I was told that the way to do it when setting up replacement drums / shoes was to tighten them up fully then back them off one or two 'notches'.
To be clear, how many notches are you saying they should be backed off by when setting or resetting the shoes?
Best wishes,
Mike.

Tighten up the adjusters so the drum is locked then back off the adjusters so that there is absolutely no contact between drum and shoe and then back off one more notch. That will give enough travel to the cylinder piston to reduce the possibility of sticking.

I love the feedback through the brake pedal I get from the Minor.
Mine is a quite standard 1965 1098 engine powered, with no mods to the brakes.
As long as I treat her with respect, so far I have managed to stop with ease and with style.