Drum brakes sure do get a bad rap

[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