Getting an old car and installing an EV drivetrain, but then would have to change the brakes as well

[SouthSeas]

I've thought of getting an old car and putting electric drive train in it. But I would want it to be practical to drive and those old beasts had really crappy brakes. I'm not sure there is a car in more recent times that would have the same appeal. Oh, and it would have to be a convertible. Not so many made these days.

 

[tccartier]

I've thought of getting an old car and putting electric drive train in it. But I would want it to be practical to drive and those old beasts had really crappy brakes. I'm not sure there is a car in more recent times that would have the same appeal. Oh, and it would have to be a convertible. Not so many made these days.

If you're referring to drum brakes there's nothing crappy about those. probably 80% + of the semi trucks you see on the road today are using drum brakes. The braking mediums that are available now are much better. Nothing at all is wrong with a set of properly adjusted drum brakes. The only thing that some early cars didn't have was a redundant and or dual master cylinder. But that's an easy retrofit.

Disc brakes for the record have been around since circa 1902. That's when they were first used on cars. Not all cars but they have been known and The principles understood for quite some time.

 

[SouthSeas]

If you're referring to drum brakes there's nothing crappy about those. probably 80% + of the semi trucks you see on the road today are using drum brakes. The braking mediums that are available now are much better. Nothing at all is wrong with a set of properly adjusted drum brakes. The only thing that some early cars didn't have was a redundant and or dual master cylinder. But that's an easy retrofit.

I like the way you had to qualify that "nothing wrong" statement. But I don't agree. Drums brakes are cheaper to build. If they could be made to work as well as disks they would be on cars again. In the old days they pretty well sucked and god forbid you ever get them wet!!!

Disc brakes for the record have been around since circa 1902. That's when they were first used on cars. Not all cars but they have been known and The principles understood for quite some time.

Not sure what your point is about that. Disc brakes are more expensive and were only added once they became a lesser part of the cost of building a car, not unlike fuel injection. Disc brakes work better and were only added to the lowest priced cars once they had been in high volume production enough to minimize the price difference.

 

[MichaelP90DL]

In the old days they pretty well sucked and god forbid you ever get them wet!!!

Back in those old days, brake fading due to heat could get real exciting...when going down a hill.

 

[MP3Mike]

I like the way you had to qualify that "nothing wrong" statement. But I don't agree. Drums brakes are cheaper to build. If they could be made to work as well as disks they would be on cars again.

Isn't VW putting drum brakes on the rear of the Id.3?

 

[SouthSeas]

Isn't VW putting drum brakes on the rear of the Id.3?

Pickups still have rear disc brakes often. I had 250,000 miles on a T100 and had never changed the shoes. That's not because they were so good, it's because the rear of a pickup doesn't weigh so much and the brakes never really get used. But they are cheaper and easy to integrate a parking brake into. So using them on the rear of a car is not really a big deal and saves money.

When discs first were used on cars it was only the front, again because of the basic cost and the difficulty integrating a hand brake into the disc brake. I want to say I saw a vehicle with 4 wheel discs that added a fifth disk to the drive shaft for the emergency brake.

 

[jkoya]

I read the ID Buggy has drum brakes, because VW said their engineers preferred rear drum brakes due to its lower rolling resistance, withstands corrosion better and cheaper. That's what it said on a Green Car Reports article anyway .....

 

[SouthSeas]

I read the ID Buggy has drum brakes, because VW said their engineers preferred rear drum brakes due to its lower rolling resistance, withstands corrosion better and cheaper. That's what it said on a Green Car Reports article anyway .....

I forgot about the discs dragging on the wheels. Drum brake shoes completely retract. But they still have adjustment issues, mostly worked out by the "auto-adjusters", a lever/pawl arrangement that will tighten up the shoe spacing while braking in reverse, not to mention the crappy results when they get wet. Oh, and they make noise unlike discs which have been fixed after decades of squealing. Maybe they don't make squealing drums anymore either. lol

I find it funny when you hear a sound effect of brake squeak of a car stopping in a moving more recent than the 80s. That's the sound drums can make and they keep putting it in, lol.

 

[tccartier]

Back in those old days, brake fading due to heat could get real exciting...when going down a hill.

Brake fade due to heat was in large part due to the friction materials that were available or commonly used at the time it had nothing to do with any inherent flaw in drum brakes or their design.

It was the same for another poster that insisted that it was some fault of the drum brake setup that they did not work well when they were wet. again that is a function of the friction material being used not the design of the brake. Disc brakes using similar asbestos materials that were commonly used in the 60s had for the most part the same performance issues. The issues of heat dissipation glazing heat cracks the ineffectiveness of asbestos brake lining materials in wet conditions and so forth were problems inherent to all brakes of the period.

You can't compare manual drum brakes of 60 years ago to power assisted disc brakes of today.

but enough on off-topic rants in this thread this will have to move to a brake discussion forum. But hey maybe I can chrome my brakes always looking for ways to get more chrome

 

[AdamVIP]

I forgot about the discs dragging on the wheels. Drum brake shoes completely retract. But they still have adjustment issues, mostly worked out by the "auto-adjusters", a lever/pawl arrangement that will tighten up the shoe spacing while braking in reverse, not to mention the crappy results when they get wet. Oh, and they make noise unlike discs which have been fixed after decades of squealing. Maybe they don't make squealing drums anymore either. lol

I find it funny when you hear a sound effect of brake squeak of a car stopping in a moving more recent than the 80s. That's the sound drums can make and they keep putting it in, lol.

Replacing drum brakes sucks. VW can spin it how they want but cost was their biggest factor.

 

[SouthSeas]

Replacing drum brakes sucks. VW can spin it how they want but cost was their biggest factor.

Not sure what you mean. Did you mean replacing DISC brakes sucks? Personally I wouldn't be so worried about having rear drums. It seems like a minor cost savings, but whatever. 4 wheel discs aren't that much better than front discs.