Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Brakes

Whilst that may help you pass the MOT, The purpose of the MOT brake balance test is to ensure that the braking force is distributed evenly between the wheels on the same axle. This ensures the vehicle stops in a straight line without pulling to one side, which is critical for driver control and safety especially in an emergency stop.

I'm not sure what is leading to the brake imbalance being experienced and how imbalanced it was , but I'd want the brakes to pull up square and straight, with no potential for loss of control.......most Morgans have no traction control or ABS to assist braking in difficult circumstances......maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't be too happy driving a very light car with any brake imbalance..

Hi John, in one of my earlier posts I mentioned that on the road no matter how I brake the car stops in a perfectly straight line with no imbalance. I wouldn’t drive it until rectified if the brakes were as imbalanced as the dyno suggested. I can brake hard with no hands on the wheel and it stops straight and true.

Reassuring to hear, and puts it in context.....as you know a trad Morgan are very prone to the back end locking up and potential to go sideways, the weight also transferring forwards and passing thru to the front wheel braking and without brake reaction bars the front brakes lean forward because of the chassis flexing. All endearing features that can create a few heart stopping moments in an emergency stop.So I was a little surprised to read just the latest posting


Must admit I didn't read all the earlier postings, mea culpa!

Actually, that is only the case with the pre-June 1993s. That was when the MMC moved from Girlings to what we now called Caparo. (originally Lockheed). The
earlier Girling brake era (1978-1993 for Plus 8s) were sadly 50-50 front and rear when they should have been more like 60-40. (Yes, despite their difficulty in dissipating
heat, drum brakes, because of their much greater friction surface, produce more initial braking more than disks brakes). That locks up the rear before the front and the
result is the rear end has the famous (infamous?) tendency to swing into roadside bushes and other wise prejudice aggressive turns. It is easy to fix with an inexpensive
brake balancer,available everywhere, but aside from the more astute in the racing crowd, few do.

I used to switch from a Girling Plus 8 to a Caparo Plus 8s often during the year. I had to take care when moving to the Girling car despite me soon having Caparo front
brakes on both. (Aside from this hydraulic anomaly, I prefer Girling rear drums to Caparo rear drums.)

Of course, pad or rear shoes type/ quality has nothing to to do with this very intriguing balance problem. The best brake pads/shoes on the planet will not change balancing
only brake force and feel.

The nutty thought hit me, dictated by logic, that the car would brake straight if the rears were coincidentally compensated for by ill-balanced rear. Has swapping the front
pads been tried?

L.

The car brakes straight and true. There is no fault with the brakes. The problem is with the testing procedure/equpiment

Cheers

Grumpy, I take mine to PSS at the Caerwys junction on the A55. They use a decelerometer for brake testing and yes you are absolutely right about the modern roller brake test. The Mog is way to light to afford adequate friction under braking and the multi variable readings you get will predict nothing. Made worse by the fact that drums over brake momentarily before becoming consistent in brake force. This causes the tyres to jump or skip on the rollers.

There used to be an old school MOT tester who used a Tapley meter (decelerometer) to test brakes. If it fell off the seat car got a pass

Yes the green stuff pads are fine and they do have a good cold abrasion/ brake effect. I actually liked them as you really could feel the brakes bit enicely and as I don't have much breaking where I drive that cold pad reassurance was most welcome . I did find that the wheels got very dirty quickly with them though and last change I went back to mintex. They do need a little heat but one down side of them was that they don't keep the disc very clean at all.

For those who are interested or may only have experienced modern MOT testing - this is a Tapley meter

I'm quite proud of mine as it still has the storage box


This is how they are set level, usually in the passenger footwell - the base is heavy cast iron


This is how they read - deceleration in %age of G, the higher the number the harder you hit the windscreen

Wow, that's great :-)
Now I've seen it I can vaguely remember them :-)