Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Brakes

Just had a cyclist ride straight out in front of me from a blind drive.
Emergency braking locked up the rear wheels but not the front.
Is this normal?

Weight transfer means that the rears can lock up when hard on. You don't really want to lock the fronts because you slide and can't steer, so it sounds Ok to me!

One of the reasons for not fitting rear discs...great braking predictability. Bedsteads work well.
Nick

Might be worth getting the rear cylinders checked.

I used to find the nearside rear locked easily. Then at the last service it was found that one of the cylinders on the off side rear had seized, so a hard prod on the brakes put more force to the nearside locking it.

Now it seems the rears lock just before the front. The car stops well.

I was advised to do a couple of pseudo emergency stops a month to make sure the rear brakes get well exercised. In normal driving they don't do much.

Thanks Peter, good advice.
I will do some emergency stops without the errant cyclist.
I will also get the rear brakes checked as it did pull to one side.
Titus

I always find the rear can lock up under very hard braking.
It pays to practice as Peter says to get the feel & ensure it is all working

Quite a funny thing when I was looking for new drum bedding in advice for an issue I had with my new drums on my smart Roady this was before I got the Mog Roadster, it was based on Morgans and advised (where safe to do so obviously) some very hard emergency braking 4 times forwards and once in reverse with driving in between to bring temperatures down to normal.

I wonder if using to much engine braking contributes the drums getting a little lazy?

Also we have been spoilt well not exactly spoilt by ABS and rear discs and traction control, whereas driving a Morgan you have to learn to remember to use Cadence breaking again rather than the modern just stamp on the brakes and let the dohickies do the work for you.

Apart from the new +8 and Aero's that is

Only my Polo has ABS.
But I use cadence braking in all three cars.
If anything the Mog has the best brakes of all three - a servo has been added at some stage in its first 20 years...

I can confirm (as yet another car today didn’t see me and pulled out in my path) that I can controllably lock the front if needed. The rear wheels don’t appear to lock. That was around 30mph. To achieve maximum braking I thought it was normal to have the greater braking force biased towards the front were the larger mass is. Isn’t that the laws of physics?

But lifts the rear slightly and makes it harder to steer, best to loose a bit of speed first. The Morgan isn't too badly balanced.