Drum brakes sure do get a bad rap

[Ghoste]

I just don't get it myself.  If you compare the swept area of the average muscle era Mopar drum and the self energizing action of shoes versus pads, I just can't understand why everyone thinks they are a hazardous method to stop your car.  The 9 inch drums under a 66 Tri Power GTO?  Yes, I can see that.  Doing multiple panic stops from 75 mph?  Yep, they are going to fade.  But real life use?  I just don't get it, sorry.  They seemed to  work fine for decades until discs became a selling feature on newer cars and conversion companies with money to be had started advertising heavily in car mags.  They work fine in the heavy commercial industry so why are we all so anxious to rip out a simple system that works fine to install four wheel discs?

[Baldwinvette77]

i have 4 manual drums on my daily driven olds, they saved my life once, and a dog that ran onto the roads life another time, they do get a bit scary on the highway, but hey, a teenager with 325hp on tap managed not to have a single crash with 4 wheel drums, thats gotta count for something, only reason i wont willing install drums on a car is because i hate those stupid springs and wheel cylinders, screw it, but yeah not bad if you already have them 

[charge69]

They work OK on my 1969 R/T but I still have to be careful and "plan" my stops more often. The "swept area" of a disc brake does seem much less but have it all over drums for cooling and braking power.

If I was building a Charger, especially a non-numbers-matching one, I would definitely put power discs on it. Mine is numbers-matching and I felt compelled to put it back more original and that meant "manual drum brakes"!

[Baldwinvette77]

They work OK on my 1969 R/T but I still have to be careful and "plan" my stops more often. The "swept area" of a disc brake does seem much less but have it all over drums for cooling and braking power.

If I was building a Charger, especially a non-numbers-matching one, I would definitely put power discs on it. Mine is numbers-matching and I felt compelled to put it back more original and that meant "manual drum brakes"!

manual drums with a hemi  dayum  who ever ordered that car new had some serious balls

[Ghoste]

Have you driven one though?

[Baldwinvette77]

Have you driven one though?

have I driven a drum brake hemi car? i havent even seen a hemi   

[Ghoste]

You are in Ontario right?

[kokxville]

They work OK on my 1969 R/T but I still have to be careful and "plan" my stops more often. The "swept area" of a disc brake does seem much less but have it all over drums for cooling and braking power.

If I was building a Charger, especially a non-numbers-matching one, I would definitely put power discs on it. Mine is numbers-matching and I felt compelled to put it back more original and that meant "manual drum brakes"!

manual drums with a hemi  dayum  who ever ordered that car new had some serious balls

I have a 69 4 speed R/T with the 440 and non powered drums all around,but i'm upgrading to disc brakes.It scares the sh#t out of me when i brake

On my 66 belvedere 318 904 auto,i've had powered drums and they worked fine.

[hemihead]

Many people are so used to Disc brakes now that they think Drums are unreliable . Then there are the people that have to do the "Fad " thing
and put whatever is the latest on their car because " everyone else has it "  or  they need the biggest for some kind of ego trip . Kind of like the guy who has to have a 440 in his car to drive 35 mph to a car show . I have owned and driven many Mopars with Drums and I find nothing wrong with them . The 11 inch Drum brakes are a pretty good setup .

[A383Wing]

I got 10" manual drums on all 3 Chargers....never have had a problem stopping. A couple times the cream 66 has had a "fading" issue after repeated hard stops, but nothing else

[stripedelete]

I think they got the bad rap from GM and Ford.   Mopar drums were large enough to stop their cars.
Maybe the reason 1st and 2nd gen discs are rare.

[cdr]

drums on all four of mine

[Ghoste]

Stripedelete that has always been one of my suspicions too.

[Baldwinvette77]

yes i am in ontario, i was told by a nova owner that drums are superior because they wont throw brake dust on your chrome rims, he had a solid point  

[Ghoste]

Whereabouts are you?

[WHITE AND RED 69]

yes i am in ontario, i was told by a nova owner that drums are superior because they wont throw brake dust on your chrome rims, he had a solid point  

 I would rather have brake dust on my rims than another car sandwiched to my hood.

If you just cruise from show to show then drums are fine. If you use your car in traffic or for spirited driving that involves more than one stop then you need disc brakes. You'd be surprised how much better your cars will be with just front discs. You can get away with drums on the rear but the front needs em.

I want to take my car across the country, autocross, and tracks. So its disc brakes for me.

[Mike DC]

            

IMHO drums are a piss-poor overcomplicated design compared to discs.  There isn't a drum brake setup on earth big enough to fix the basic problems.  I was about 12-13 when I first saw a drum brake opened up and the design just seemed like a bad idea to me even then. 


--  Drums are a PITA to service compared to discs for several reasons.  I would almost do the conversion just to avoid working on drums.  

--  They fade like crazy.  You can't plan ahead for a panic stop and you can't make other drivers act sensibly.

--  In the last 40 years the roads have literally doubled in traffic, driver distractions have gone up dramatically, and everyone else expects your car to stop like a modern one.  

--  Forget theory for a second.  In real world testing the stopping distances for drums are consistently & significantly longer.  This happens even when both setups being compared can easily lock up all 4 wheels.

--  A decent 2nd-gen grille assembly costs a thousand bucks these days.  Any questions?

[Brightyellow69rtse]

power drums here. i hate doing drum brakes its its a pita. discs up front is the next big project for the car i think.

[Charger-Bodie]

4 Wheel manual Drums for me too! One Car is a 670 horse Hemi and one a stock 440. Firm feel sells carbon met. shoes and they make the drums so much better,and I personally think their fine anyway if the setup is correct and the fluid is getting where its supposed to.

[green69rt]

I kind of have to agree with Ghoste.   Drums do ok when you know how to keep them working right.  The problem I see is that many people want a carefree care, meaning no maintenance.  My old charger required adjusting the brakes fairly often ( I don't remember how often.)   When they were adjusted right everything was great.   The fading problem only occurred when using the brakes again and again (street racing??? Who said that?)   Discs don't require the maintenance but get bigger to get the same swept area, there's always a trade off.   All things said and done, I'll probably have discs on my car when it's done, guess I'm lazy!

[Musicman]

I modified these 11" X 2-1/2" drums for the rear of my 67... The drums have been drilled to release trapped Heat, Gases, Dirt & Moisture. I will be using Ceramic shoes with these as well.
I think disc's are fine on the front, as long as they are "up to the task", which many of them are not, unless you move up to a 17" or larger rim. Of course, there are some good sets that will fit a 15" rim too, it just depends on who put the kit together and what it's comprised of.

[1BAD68]

Those look interesting.
Just wondering why don't they use disc brakes on 18 wheeler's?
Seems like they would benefit from them "if" disc's really do have better braking ability.

[Bob T]

That's a tricky blue pic Musicman, can count on you to raise the bar 
Interesting theory on drilling, definitely took some time on the set out , is it tested out yet?

11 x 3 drums up front on my R/T, they pull up ok and straight but I'm not hammering on them, I'm very aware of over demanding from them with multiple high speed stops. I'd look at discs for a future upgrade, but  cant justify the spend currently

[Dino]

Drums on mine and they work absolutely fine in my daily stop and go city driving, however the few times I had to mash the pedal for an idiot driver or a crossing deer, the car would not do a panic stop in a straight line so you have to work at it to keep it on the road.  With some fine tuning the car would track better but I'm still sticking discs on it.  Drums do work though.

[HPP]

I think the application of an over the road truck is a false analogy in being compared to a daily driver car. These trucks are rarely darting in and out of traffic and hitting multiple, rapid braking situations. Even in traffic, they crawl along and have so many trans and rear gears that brakes are less of a factor than a 3,4, even a 6 speed car. Additionally, they have 5 axles with varying bias comtrols on those axles to control braking force.

[elacruze]

Context; Chargers.

Drums are for originality, not economy. Discs are better in every regard.

That said, drums are neither weak nor unreliable. They are not as controllable in a panic stop.

Big trucks use drums simply because they have a MASSIVE friction area, and can generate a shit-ton more stopping power for a short time, critically important on something that weighs 80,000 pounds. They do quite often have disc brakes on the front axle.

Somebody might point out that high-speed trains use disc brakes; that's simply for fade resistance, and because steel wheels on rails don't have an excellent coefficient of traction.

[Ghoste]

They also have tens of thousands of pounds of mass to bring to an instant halt for that one time they do have to hit the dynamite valve because some little modern ricer weighing all of 3000 pounds just cut him off in traffic. Thankfully though the ricer would have four wheel discs.

[Baldwinvette77]

i live in the gta, and im sure the average ricer weighs closer to 3500 lbs with all those speakers and amps 

[myk]

yes i am in ontario, i was told by a nova owner that drums are superior because they wont throw brake dust on your chrome rims, he had a solid point  

 I would rather have brake dust on my rims than another car sandwiched to my hood.

If you just cruise from show to show then drums are fine. If you use your car in traffic or for spirited driving that involves more than one stop then you need disc brakes. You'd be surprised how much better your cars will be with just front discs. You can get away with drums on the rear but the front needs em.

I want to take my car across the country, autocross, and tracks. So its disc brakes for me.

Same here.  I daily-drove my '69 for five years so I learned that having good brakes, suspension and tires is important.  I suppose for the "once a month and only during sunny-days with no traffic and a police escort" crowd, drums are fine but c'mon; disc brakes were invented and installed on cars for a reason, and it isn't for the sake of a "fad," and when you consider how many more thousands, if not millions of more people there are on the roads these days (most of whom have no business operating a motor vehicle) than there were just 10 years ago, you cannot deny the importance, the need for greater, more reliable stopping ability...

[Charger-Bodie]

It sucks to see that this thread appears to heading down the road of sarcastic remarks about how these cars are driven............... I will say this: I have had a fair number of these cars over the years and I drive them hard. Not like autocross hard or weaving in and out of trafic on the way to Home Depot during rush hour hard,but hard. My Black 68 for example had front discs and it stopped great,but IMHO not any better than either of the two I have now ,both with 11 inch manual drums. Im personally inclined to think that for 15 inch wheels 11s are Just as good,(unless you dont have working brakes or the smaller 10x2s already working if you need to buy it all anyway, may as well go modern) but if you are ok with bigger wheels then I think a real benefit can be had by going with bigger rotors and bigger better calipers. That being said,I dont mind 16,17,and 18 inch wheels on these cars, but I want to have the ability to put on the stock ones too.

[tan top]

  fit a adjustable proportioning valve to the rear , on a stock drum set up  , will , improve them in a high speed panic stop  emergency situation   ,

[ACUDANUT]

How many of use have had Drum brakes and when you use the brakes, the car turns left or right.  Not for me, ever again.

[Ghoste]

I've had that in my disc brake car too.

[Musicman]

I drove these cars, as well as much larger & heavier C-Bodies on drum brakes when they were new, and never had an issue with them, outside of the normal maintenance (which still sucks by the way). Brake fade was usually the first sign of a poorly maintained or completely non-functional rear braking system, overloading the front drums. When I first bought my Charger, it too would start suffeing from brake fade after about an hour of driving. Of course it was no surprise to me to find that the cause of the fade was a rear drum brake setup that obviously hadn't worked in years. I have disc's on the front of my Charger these days for maintenance reasons only, and I made sure that I put something up there that I knew for a fact would be able to stop the car reliably. If I had to rely on the front disc's alone however (IE: no rear brakes), I would probably be in trouble... they're 11" rotors with big piston calipers, but still... there is no substitute for large diameter rotors and big powerful calipers when it comes to disc brakes. You really think they put those 18" & 20" wheels on the new Charger because they look cool?

[Ghoste]

Ain't that the truth.

[JB400]

The only reason drum brakes are still around is because they work, for a little while anyway.   They used them when everything was still horse and buggy and trains.  That's all that everyone had ever known until the 60's and 70s.  They had at least 75 years to gain a bad rap before disc brakes become common place.  Disc brakes haven't really had enough time to have a bad rap.

For me though, it's more of a weight issue than a reliability issue.  It's easier to free up some rotating weight there than it is to make horsepower to turn the heavier drums.

[ACUDANUT]

I've had that in my disc brake car too.

True, but that's an easy fix. Stuck caliper, 20 min fix total.

[polywideblock]

all drum equipped cars that I've drove have pulled one way or the other (one used to start left and end up pull right  ) of coarse this was 30 odd years ago we were all young and knew nothing about brake maintenance.  still it seems discs are easier to fix than drums 

[Fred]

Drum brakes are 

[Charger-Bodie]

I think the point of this thread was that drums get a bad rap, and from some of you they sure are . Any brake system will work like crap if not set up and working properly.

[Dino]

I think the sloppy steering on the power assist cars is the thing to complain about here.  The drums are fine.

[Ghoste]

Fingertip control.

[Dino]

Somebody should have told them we only want that below 10 mph.   

[Musicman]

For me though, it's more of a weight issue than a reliability issue.  It's easier to free up some rotating weight there than it is to make horsepower to turn the heavier drums.

I don't want to beat a dead horse any longer here, but it should be noted that a complete disc brake setup weighs more than a drum brake setup.

[Ghoste]

34 pounds a side on the front for a disc setup.  Spindle, rotor, pads and caliper.

[Charger-Bodie]

For me though, it's more of a weight issue than a reliability issue.  It's easier to free up some rotating weight there than it is to make horsepower to turn the heavier drums.

I don't want to beat a dead horse any longer here, but it should be noted that a complete disc brake setup weighs more than a drum brake setup.

..........and they have less drag. If set up properly. <----------- Set up properly is the key here.

[Ghoste]

Those two reasons are why Landy always ran drums.

[A383Wing]

I've had that in my disc brake car too.

True, but that's an easy fix. Stuck caliper, 20 min fix total.

or bad hose as well...just went though that on my Pontiac last year...I thought it was a caliper, it wasn't

[ACUDANUT]

One thing to consider. If they are so great, why are they no longer installed in car.  They have not put these on a new car since the early 1970's.

[Baldwinvette77]

One thing to consider. If they are so great, why are they no longer installed in car.  They have not put these on a new car since the early 1970's.

a couple reasons, obvious one being discs are easier to maintain/ service, and for manufactures it can often cost less now to put discs instead of drums
also for the same reason abs and traction control are standard equipment; people are lazy and/or very stupid 

[ACUDANUT]

Hey I resemble that remark. lol

[Ghoste]

Cheaper to install from an assembly standpoint too, not to mention that if one company makes it a selling "feature" and its marketed as safety, the others are obligated to follow suit.  And I never necessarily said drums were better, I just don't know that discs, especially four wheel, are as superior as some want me to believe.
I think for me if they are on my modern car, great.  If they are on my old car that's fine too but if it has drums, I'm good with that too.

[JB400]

For me though, it's more of a weight issue than a reliability issue.  It's easier to free up some rotating weight there than it is to make horsepower to turn the heavier drums.

I don't want to beat a dead horse any longer here, but it should be noted that a complete disc brake setup weighs more than a drum brake setup.

I going to assume you mean factory setups.  There are quite a few aftermarket parts available that can get static weight down below 20 lbs.  But, as I mentioned, I was talking rotating weight which is completely different.  Most of the mass on a drum brake is on the outside while discs are closer to the centerline of the whole assembly.

[6spd68]

i have 4 manual drums on my daily driven olds, they saved my life once, and a dog that ran onto the roads life another time, they do get a bit scary on the highway, but hey, a teenager with 325hp on tap managed not to have a single crash with 4 wheel drums, thats gotta count for something, only reason i wont willing install drums on a car is because i hate those stupid springs and wheel cylinders, screw it, but yeah not bad if you already have them  

Exactly, if you know how to drive with'em it's not an issue.  Personally, still taking disc over drums as I'm planning to have close to 600HP with my build by the time it's done.

i live in the gta

That makes two of us

[MrSnicks]

I have a 1969 Ford F100 that had manual drums and I upgraded to power which was a huge improvement. I'll be upgrading to the factory front disc brake setup that came on 73 and newer F100's as it's a direct bolt in.

On my 71 Charger it has power drums, but I'm removing those to install factory power discs.

I just don't like working on drum brakes and that's the bottom line for me.

Patrick