<VV> Disc brakes

[Tony Underwood]

At 08:55 PM 11/9/2006, Frank DuVal wrote:
>Even if you have front disc brakes, you have two drum brakes left.
>
>When cars with 4 wheel drum brakes were new, stopping in a straight 
>line was not a serious problem. They mostly stopped in straight 
>lines, or the highway department would have had to build wider lanes!


Even my ratty-ass '60 4-door will stop straight as an arrow if I nail 
the brakes.    If someone's car doesn't stop straight when braked 
hard, they need to fix it.   Such activity exhibited by a Corvair 
when braking hard is NOT natural and certainly not the fault of the 
brake design.  Something's wrong... weepy wheel cylinder or something 
like loose suspension bushings.


>If you have a '60 to '62 Corvair then there is no self adjuster and 
>the GM recomended brake adjustment period back then was every 1000 
>miles. No wonder self adjusters became so popular. It did take a 
>while though, my '50 Studebaker had self adjusting brakes as 
>standard! Hill holder too, but I digress.


The  brakes on my '60 need adjusting...  pedal goes halfway to the 
floor these days.   I'll do it, sometime, maybe this weekend or if 
not next weekend, or maybe next time I have it on a lift, or when 
it's nice out and I feel like working...  although I don't know where 
my  brake spoon is so I'd have to find that before I adjust the 
brakes, so I'll wait until later I think...    ;)


>If you have self adjusting brakes, then all the hardware must work 
>correctly and be installed correctly. I bet half of the drum brakes 
>I work on for the first time have shoes or star wheel assemblies 
>mounted in the wrong place.

Brake overhauls on drums with self-adjusters is evidently becoming a 
lost art.   I keep seeing examples of this exact same thing, parts 
installed backwards, both self-adjuster star wheels and shoes.


>A big Corvair issue in the last 15 years is the rubber brake hoses 
>becomming one way check valves.


Absolutely.   Bizarre that I've not seen this sort of thing happen 
before, even in older cars.   Twice I've seen examples of this sort 
of thing with Vairs here along the way (both of them 1960 models), as 
well as a couple or three times with other people's cars.    Mine 
were PM'ed, arbitrarily replaced the hoses regardless of how good 
they looked.    On my '60, the one that decided not to pass brake 
fluid looked fine on the outside and had been replaced at least once 
previously *by me* back when.

May be the more modern parts aren't as durable as the factory 
stuff...?    Even so, it's still a good idea to keep brakes in decent 
shape... as the saying goes, starting is optional but stopping is 
mandatory.


tony..