rear brake swap
rear brake swap
A very helpfull and easy to understand source is vwhelp.com for brake part swaps and part numbers and Vic has most of the parts to order.Dennis,if you can free up the e brake handle by grinding the welded areas and can determine whether the e brake tubes are still intact you might be able to restore the system.I had a similiar situation,had to open up the tunnel and purchase the replacement e brake bracket,handle ass'y and cables but it can be done.Let me know if I can be of any help.
This thread was the first I heard of swapping brake cylinders. I've read what I found about it on that website and in Jeff Hibbard's book. It sounds like something that a person who wants to improve their off-road braking might try. Maybe so. My buggy goes off-road but its also street legal. Frankly the street is where I want my brakes to work best. Yes I have big Goodyear Wranglers on 10" wide rims on the back, but I also have big Goodyear Wingfoot HPs on the front, which are about 50% wider than the tire on the original bug. Also the whole business about the difference in front/rear weight bias on a bug vs. a shortened buggy sounds pretty flaky. With a shortened wheelbase, more weight will shift forward when you brake, not less. Keep shortening the wheel base and I guarantee you, eventually it will tip over forward. I'd be real careful before I tried this on my street driven buggy. How about some of you UK buggy builders out there: Would swapping brake cylinders get past an MOT?
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jsturtlebuggy
- Posts: 652
- Joined: Wed Apr 07, 2010 5:00 am
Well Cairomanx it may sound flaky to you but it works. And it has worked for me for over 30 years now. Bruce shorten the wheelbase to tranfer the weight to the rear for better traction. Have you put your buggy on scales and measured the weight of each corner? I have. And I drive it alot on the street and on the freeways. The way I have it setup it works well in all conditions. I wonder how your works on a rain slick road in a panic stop with those wide tires on the front and no weight.
Joseph
Manx Club #1095
Having fun with Buggies since 1970
Worked in VWs in shops since 1970
Manx Club #1095
Having fun with Buggies since 1970
Worked in VWs in shops since 1970
there are major weight changes from going from a all steel body with lots of weight everywhere , even above you head to going to less than a 200 lb body. with an extra something in front IF you have a gas tank. I can lift the front end and turn my buggy around by my self . what good are you brakes in front if they lock up with great ease? and the rears that hold about 5 times the weight cant lock up? not that much weight moves up to the front wheels in the case of a buggy all the weight is at a level field. except you body weight there is nothing above that level field (PAN) the tires just get pushed forward and not down like other cars. I have a stock front end an i know the nose of the buggy does not dip down when i hit the brakes. Not much if any. And when i pull the e brake handle that increases the rear stopping power as it adds to the pressure of the rear drums only . Then and only then does the buggy stop really fast.. As i said before i took it to a shop for a safety inspection and the brakes were no# 1 item for the inspection. it passed just fine but the tall ties and stock drum set up is not going to work well.
Jsturtlebuggy, Bruce shortened the wheelbase to 80 inches because it increases effective ground clearance. It wasn't because of braking. Also because thats a Jeep's wheelbase and at the time people thought that was the ideal length. Now everbody including Bruce build them longer. Unless you measure the weight on all four tires during a max effort stop, when most of the weight is on the front tires, your data is incorrect. I have to admit, if you regulary drive your buggy in the rain, skinny front tires probably make sense. And if you have skinny front tires, then weak front brakes makes some sense too. However, I'd rather slow down the very infrequent times I drive it in the rain and have good front tires and brakes the 99% of the time I drive when there's no standing water.
I got my Manx back on the road again last summer, and the brakes/stopping really frightened me. I?m amazed at how much shortening a 40 year old chassis, and vastly changing wheel and tire size can mess-up brake balance and vehicle control during stopping. My experience was along the lines of seabeebuggy?s, my front brakes would lock up, and I could ?help? the stopping distances by pulling on the parking (read EMERGENCY) brake. All this was with a braking system where all the components were new or rebuilt, properly adjusted, and well bled. One of this winters projects was to improve the buggies braking. I did some stopping tests prior to starting my improvements to record what did and didn?t work. Since $ is a factor for me I decided on an upgrade strategy of trying lower cost options described in this thread first before throwing larger wads of cash on rear wheel disc brakes for the buggy.. My car is used exclusively on the street. Here is where I started: Meyers Manx *Short, (pre-67) Swing axle with stock drum brakes. With adapters for Chevy patterned wheels. *Lowered Ball Joint front end with Karman-Gia brakes, Rotors drilled for Chevy. *Karman-Gia dual master cylinder. (I think it has some sort of additional valve from the factory for the front discs). *Corvair engine (about 75 lbs. additional weight hanging out back). *Total vehicle weight with full (front tank) and me as the driver 1475 lbs. I didn?t get the front/rear weights. Street Tire sizes as follows: Front 225-50 R16 (24 inches tall, a little shorter than stock VW) Rear 225-65 R16 (28 inches tall) I found a little used flat, smooth, clean asphalt road that I can use for repeated tests. I made a minimum of 5 runs, and then discarded the long and short stops from each speed. Pavement was dry, and the temperature was in the 40?s. All tests were conducted using the stock speedometer for indicated speed. The indicated speed is probably a little fast. I suspect the calibration is off due to the smaller than stock front tire diameter. 50 to 0 stopping distances were a repeatable 175 feet with the front tires locking up, and very bad directional control. 60 to 0 was a repeatable 225 feet, again with poor directional control. I replaced the rear brake backing plates with those from a 1970 IRS bug, and put on a set of front wheel cylinders as described on the VWhelp.com site, http://www.1800vw.bizhosting.com/brakehowto.htm, I also replaced the brake drums with a redrilled set of AC Industries rear drums. The purpose of the drum replacement was to get rid of the extra wheel offset my wheel adapters gave me, but since the raw blanks produced by AC are the same for swing and IRS using them also let me use the wider 1970 type rear brake shoes. (and my rear tires are now almost covered by the Manx?s fenders!) After a brake bleed and adjustment I re-ran my stopping test. Same stretch of road, same procedures 50 to 0 in 90 feet 60 to 0 in 120 feet Not supercar performance, but pretty good, even by today?s standards. I didn?t try a ?hands-free? brake test, but my confidence in controlling this beast is much higher. It stops in a straight line. I?m happy with the results, so I?m not going to invest in rear wheel disc brakes yet. I realize most buggies are unique, and not all have my street braking requirements. Though not intuitive to me, the fairly inexpensive changes suggested by others in this thread worked for me. Hopefully this information will be of use to someone else in their quest for solid street buggy brakes.