Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Roadster (2010) rear brake conversion drum - disc?

Even if there are different views on TM about the front brake pads, I also use green stuff with good satisfaction. It also gives a good dosing feeling to me.
Fortunately, I had never experienced that the rear drum brakes were stronger than the front brake on a Morgan (but I know it from other and older cars). Whoever experiences this should urgently have the brakes tested and repaired. It can end very badly otherwise.

Thanks for all the good and valid comments... I think it´s unquestionable that the front brakes should always be stronger than the rear ones, and balance is the key word. I suspected that the rear drums might be much weaker than the Caparo front discs, causing a disbalance, leading also the front brakes to get overloaded under heavy duty. I think I will get the balance checked, do a more regular fluid exchange (with bleeding), and switch to higher spec brake pads. Thanks, folks!

Talk to Cain at Wolf Performance, he has fast road upgrades.

Brakes

Several mentions here of getting the rear brakes “balanced” with the front. What ever does that mean in practice and how can it be achieved? The only thing I can think of is to try various grades of lining material on the rear shoes, which through trial and error, could work out pretty expensive!

Deejay .... on a competition car you would fit a brake propotioning valve or dual MCs and a balance bar .... but on a road car then size and lining material would be the route without making changes to the hydraulics.

K

The standard Morgan brake bias is towards the rear. This is because there is no load limiting valve fitted to rear circuit as there would be in the car that the master cylinder and servo came out of (Rover 400 off the top of my head)

A lot of Morgan brake fade issues are from the rear shoes overheating, which then allows the self adjusting mechanism to over adjust compounding the problem

The fronts are relatively robust, for the weight of the car, and the stock pads are very hard

The Sport +4, and Roadster can’t be fitted with the 300 mm vented disc upgrade as the wheel design precludes it

The smaller 280mm vented conversion is not TUV approved as it’s never been fitted by the factory

That's great info Simon ..... I guess trying to get a bit of extra out of the front from better pads would be worth trying then.??


K

Thanks for confirming, that’s what I thought.

Found a price - Mulfab, but on the MMC website


Rear Discs

A chap I know did a Mulfab rear disc conversion on his +8 - against the advice of Peter . He could never get the handbrake to work satisfactorily, and in the end reverted back to drums. This was some years ago though and the engineering may have moved on of course.
If the problem is overheating would Minifins or the "Datsun" style brake drums help?