Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Brakes

I have found that Ferodo FDB 832 are perfectly sufficient for road use on my Plus 4.
Inexpensive and do the job well after proper breaking in.
Funny how items like brake pads, shockers, oil, grease, tyres, even tyre pressures all seem to stir a hornets nest when enquired about! One man’s meat…as they say!!

I think that we all evolve favourites over time and with experience. And we all follow different routes, because we can't individually test everything, but we all know what works for us.

As I said before, brake pads interact with your individual style. I know I'm not a braker, so the track based pads never get hot enough for me. OIl and grease really won't make much difference. Stay with the right viscosity oil, but any grease will lubricate kingpins, and it would take a lengthy scientific test to establish wear patterns of greases over time.

Dampers are over discussed. Take them off and see how it feels. Having had two fails, I know that on the road, you just can't tell much difference. I know that Spax single dampers are as good as AVO adjustables, within a few % and that Spax adjustables are slightly better. For me anyway.

I also know that if you have a six leaf spring rear, replacing with four leaf springs and a Panhard rod will make a significant improvement to ride and handling.

^^^^^ All relevant to Trads.

You obviously have a heavier engine.

I'm also a fan of Ferodo, even good enough for the 3.7's (road use)

I keep a new set on the shelf, just in case anyone calls in with a squealy Mog - and they are as low dust as special pads sold as 'low dust' like those overpriced greenstuff ones made from snakeoildust.com

All spot on views here! I too am not a braker preferring to use the gearbox. The standard Ferodo work for me as well, The car is light and responds to braking well and unless you love to brake late or track your car you just won't get them hot enough to work effectively if using racing style pads. When someone tells me they are finding their breaking to be lacking in performance the first place I would look is the rear brakes. Many Morgans I have come across have had the rear cylinders seized solid yet it had passed an MOT. Often they are seen as classic cars... sometimes they can be to narrow to fit on to the rollers for brake testing and on the wide bodies that do fit they can bounce badly so an old system decelerometer is used and on front brakes alone it will pass the brake test. You have to physically check the rear brakes work with wheels off the ground! The other problem can be that the car had been fitted with performance pads and they really need to be hot to work effectively!

Dave is spot on re the dampers, You really can remove the front set and you won't know they've gone, I'm reluctant to say it behaves better as they are now part of the cars construction and use regs! I have posted before in much greater depth on my findings re suspension and there are things you can do at the back but all cars need a variation on the rules but with under 40mm of travel what can you expect but you can make it almost reasonable. Adjustable shocks are needed at the back more so with the four leaf springs but if you add a set of Rog's assisters then that's as good as you will get a trad to behave. My rear shocks are spax adjustable but when or if I get to renew mine again I will use Cain's newly developed examples at Wolf Performance as you will know you are getting the correct operating length for you car. Believe me there have been so many issues re the open and closed lengths causing damage to the shock and mounts since the telescopic shocks superseded the lever arm originals that it is nice to know what you are being supplied with will work for you.

For what it's worth and close to two years after fitting my Mintex MRM1802 pads, they continue to perform extremely well, they do dust up the wheels more than the original Caparo pads did but it's by no means a big problem on my black powder coated wires.

They've now seen 8,000 miles of road use, but more revealing is how they performed during a number of severe punishment sessions on the track (Castle Combe & Prescott). These conditions sort the men from the boys, repeated agressive braking proved without question these pads definitely offer a far wider temperature range than the originals that would soon go off on the track.

On the road the Mintex MRM 1802 compound gives outstanding bite from stone cold with zero squealing noises, however they doggedly resist fade even under the most severe use that can really only be safely replicated at the track. To give you an idea of just how hard they've been tested, coming off the track after multiple laps at Castle Combe the smell eminating from Monty's brakes pointed to the Mintex MRM1802 pads being close to auto ignition!



I'm sure they were actiually a long way of igniting, but they certainly were way hotter than you'd ever be able to get them to on the road, even during agressive driving in a mountainous area. A while back Mintex replaced their well respected M1144 compount as recommended to me by my friends at Frontline, here's what Mintex say about their new fast road compounds MRM1801 and MRM1802, :

"Replacing M1144 road applications MRM1801 is a new medium friction compound specifically developed for performance road and light track day use, replacing M1155 and some M1144 applications MRM1802 is a new medium friction compound specifically developed for track day, circuit, rally and historic racing. Encompassing an average friction of 0.43 μ MRM1802 offers the controllability and positive feel of M1155 while the new thermal underlayer increases high temperature performance and longevity."



TBH, if they didn't perform nicely on the road I wouldn't have kept them, but with the exception of a bit more dust these pads do seem to offer the best of all worlds, so they're definitely staying on Monty. At £85.92 a set they're not the cheapest pads out there, however, in my oppinion cheap & brakes are'nt two words tthat should ever go together, they are however what I would decribe as 'excellent value for money'

For Caparo calipers order part nunber: MLB52MRM1802



Dave.

I’m now part way through my annual service. The wheels are off and the brakes are stripped. Can’t detect any issues at the rear, slaves move freely, return fine too. All the pistons slide in and out ok at the front, disc wear is even and the pads have about 9mm on them.

Only tiny thing I’ve found when changing the fluid is a few small specs of muck in the brake fluid from the front right caliper. Fresh fluid all round now.

The weather is grim for the next few days so I’ll get on with the rest of the jobs and possibly get it out for a run after the weekend.

Have I found anything suspicious?, I don’t think so but time will tell. MOT due in six weeks. We must have some decent weather before then surely.

If it's just a couple of specks then I would think there's a bit of crud that got caught in the bleed nipple when the dust cap was put back on last time.

My money would be on a tyre to brake roller friction variance.

Tyre to brake roller friction variance is a critical factor in the accuracy of roller brake testers (RBTs), with measurements heavily influenced by tire pressure, vehicle weight, rubber condition, and roller surface roughness. Significant variance is introduced because RBTs measure total braking force which includes the resistance between the tire and the roller rather than just the internal brake components.

A Morgan is a very light car, so damn light in fact it's likely outside of the brake roller manufacturer's lower mass tollerance established when they designed the equipment, cars are much heavier these days so that's the standard they will have designed for. Find a friend with an equally well maintained car around the same curb weight as your Morgan, and put it on the same rollers, I bet it'll also show a similar inballance.

Anyway, you can always insist on a Tapley meter, Monty has an LSD so that's what I mandate. If you're testing the Sport Green 2012 Plus 4 in your profile you're a man of great taste as you have the same car as me, it would also mean you'll have an LSD so you really shouldnt be dropping the rear in the rollers as you'll cook your plates. In a clutch-type LSD, the wheel speed diferential creates intense friction and heat in the clutch plates as the LSD is doing its job by trying to lock the wheels together while the machine is forcing them apart.

You clearly have good mechanical knowlege and are maintaining your Morgan with great care, so please excercise your right to the Tapley meter as I'm confident you aleady know it makes sense

Update

Mot passed with no problems. I explained some of the above to my tester and we decided a slightly different approach to the braking test.

We decided to apply the brakes very slowly and very firmly. Not as you would driving but taking perhaps 15 seconds to achieve full lockout on the rollers. Result?- no imbalance.

Said he was a good chap, may be worth trying if you experience similar issues.