Trying to stop straight!

[SASSY]

Well, I've had enough of wandering which way the car is gonna go when I jump on the brakes.
The other eve we were out for a spin and it got to be sunset on the way home,, bad news in white tail country,,,.
Sure enough a fawn darted out of nowhere and I jumped on the brakes,, HARD! the car changed lanes alright, right into the path of an oncoming pickup!!!
Luckily he too was slowing for the fawn, I managed to get back to my side of the road and decided to spend some money.
This is a picture of the first pile.

Oh, the car is jacked up to get at the rad drain, leak in the heater core, need new rear tires blah, blah, blah

[comethead]

Good lord Fred it’s about time!!!

[poboyjo65]

A man can change his whole outlook of drum brakes after an incident like that.

[Rocket989]

It’s time!!!

[BJB]

Takes me back a bit when my Ford had drums all round. Wet days were the worse as if a drum got soaked , one of the fronts would lock whilst the other played catch up and the car wanted to change direction.

I managed to find a set of disc brakes from a donor car that bolted straight up. They were solid 10.75" rotors and the braking was improved from the standard 9" drums but I noticed that the reassuring qualities of going over to disc brakes is that on a wet day the braking was even.

Sassy, are your new discs power assisted?

Bruce

[Jims65cyclone]

What kit did you go with?
Jim

[SASSY]

Hey Bruce, will probably stay with manual,,,, I'm a little short on room underhood.

Jim, an Ebay seller (tomsclassic) had all the stuff in the pic up for 419 USD. which is about a million CAD so I jumped on it,, lol
Still need a master cyl and proportioning valve though.
Fred

[Rocket989]

Master Cylinder:
https://www.rockauto.com/en/parts/centr ... inder,1836

[BJB]

Hey Bruce, will probably stay with manual,,,, I'm a little short on room underhood.

Jim, an Ebay seller (tomsclassic) had all the stuff in the pic up for 419 USD. which is about a million CAD so I jumped on it,, lol
Still need a master cyl and proportioning valve though.
Fred

Fred , there are under dash boosters that keep the engine bay less cluttered.

What intrigues me is that most disc brake system here, require the discs to to be boosted. There have been self energising calipers such as found with the early Datsun 1600s (510) which were un-boosted with the calipers being wedge type. (I had one and those brakes were very good). Are your calipers self energising or do you have to mod your brake pedal to achieve more purchase. The factory Falcon calipers on my 65/66 Falcon require boosting and will not work properly without it.

Bruce

[SASSY]

Hey Bruce, missed your post.
As far as I know I'm just copying what was used on the early Mustangs by Shelby.

[Rocket989]

Front disc/rear drum is fine as a manual system. I believe Fred already has manual brakes, so the pivot on the pedal is located to provide more leverage than a p-brake pedal. A 15/16" bore disc/drum MC will work fine. The one I linked to is a later type. I like 'em since they use a triangulated internal design & don't rust!

4-wheel disc brakes are plenty doable as a manual system also...to a point. Most common street cars (similar to ours) use a 1" bore MC. Any more & you need a gorilla leg, any less...it probably won't have the travel needed to build up enough pressure (ask me how I know!). Past a certain point, (like a huge 4-wheel disc system) you will need some kind of boosting. It's mostly about caliper volume...you can only squeeze so much w/o some help!!

[BJB]

Hey Bruce, missed your post.
As far as I know I'm just copying what was used on the early Mustangs by Shelby.

Fred I'm interested to see how your brakes perform .


cheers

Bruce

[comethead]

I have the same unboosted early disc brake setup on my 65 with a 15/16” mc. Brakes pretty darned good and in a straight line.

Joe

[BJB]

On my '66 Falcon Fairmont ( different from the US 66 ) they came standard with front disc brakes.

M/C bore was 1" and the caliper piston bores were 2.125" x 2 opposing pistons.

Boosting was a 7" Girling booster.

Rear wheel cylinders were special and smaller 9/16" type to reduce rear wheel lockup.( can't get these W/C anymore...no big deal for me as I upgraded from 9" rear drums to 10" drums with 13/16" w/c.

Front and rear brakes are boosted.

My experience was if the engine stalled and there was NO BOOST..well you may have well thrown out an anchor as those brakes were never going to stop. ( I did have the same set up on my first Falcon in '73 with no booster as the booster had failed and I was awaiting parts; the brakes worked but not well as I couldn't apply the necessary pressure.,,,same brake pedal for all models drum and discs) Bruce

[Rocket989]

Hey Bruce - Did the PB & MB pedals use the same pivot point location? In many (most?) cars of that era the pedals were different!