1886 replies to this topic

[Heath]

lol incase anyone is unsure, I didn't actually say that...

[Heath]

Well I haven't really done anything in a while...

But the rear brakes became really shit, they're one of those things that I didn't think were too important as I'd done the fronts and it seemed to stop alright after doing them. I've done a fair few kms since then anyway, and they started getting pretty bad a few weeks ago. Growling heaps, particularly when cold and just locking up when I didn't expect it, I could feel uneven feedback through the pedal so yeah a number of obvious problems and brakes are clearly a safety item so I had to deal with it.

Grabbed some spare drums I had lying around, put them on the lathe in the four jaw, I was going to take a cut but they were nice and true anyway, so I just filed out the lip at the edge and got the rest of the contact area looking fresh & even. Tried my mate's new sandblasting booth too before laying a coat of VHT high temp caliper paint on them. Pulled the old drums off the car, sanded back the shoes, cleaned all the contact surfaces, slid them on & adjusted them up. The old drums were out of round so I couldn't get the rear brakes adjusted nicely. These are much better, so the park brake is a lot tighter and they aren't dragging like the old ones. Anyway now I know what having four wheel brakes is like, can't believe what I was missing out on! Total cost = ~$0




Shitty photo but you get the idea:

[Heath]

Yeah weather has been so shit and I haven't been working on my car because of it, so I actually went and got a job that requires some hours hahahahahaha. So now I can just save a bit up for the blue car. Lots of stuff to buy...

lol Todd, yeah I have access to some pretty good shit, may as well use it!

[76lxhatch]

Its surprising how much rear brakes a Torana uses compared to some other vehicles, so it makes all the difference. Are you using the self adjusters?

[Heath]

hahaha no shit I couldn't believe the difference in the attitude of the car during braking. Kinda scary what I was missing out on! Right now I am actually very impressed with the braking ability of my car, on completely shithouse tires. Unbelievable! I wonder what would happen if I actually put decent brakes on my car?

I remember reading in the workshop manual when I did the diff swap that the drums were self-adjusting but the mechanism that I have doesn't appear to have any kind of self-adjusting feature...

Mick, that's the lathe @ Stew & Ross' joint, but I coulda taken it to TAFE or my old high school if I wanted, as I'm friends with teachers in a few places. I have other friends with lathes that I can use too. Also got access to a CNC lathe at TAFE and I machined up lots of Banjo pinion crush tubes there a few weeks ago. hehehehehe

Edited by Heath, 10 June 2010 - 10:34 PM.

[76lxhatch]

A lot of people take the self adjusters off, on a lot of other vehicles (especially utes) they wind the rears up too tight and they lock too early. They seem to work OK on the Torana though, I actually found some and put them on with good results because I was constantly adjusting them up manually. They are easy to damage if someone has been rough with removing brake shoes, have seen plenty of bent ones. They are the same on the larger HQ-WB drums as well so easy enough to get hold of.

[orangeLJ]

Ive got the perfect solution for the lack of self adjusters.... you just put the car in the shed, and only drive it 5 times in one year.... seems to be why the brakes in the LJ are still fine, Ive never even put pads in the bloody thing!



Im jealous Heath, I wish I got to drive mine more :(

[76lxhatch]

On my torry, i never had any issues with the self adjusters, they worked the way they should, was i lucky with that?

From what I can tell they seem to work fine on Toranas, crap on the bigger cars. Strange really

[Heath]

Well if they are out of round badly you will know when you adjust them. If they aren't machined nice and smoothly they will be more willing to lock up too of course. Since your tyres on the back are probably significantly wider, stickier and with a larger diameter than the front ones, I'm a bit surprised you have that problem, but the standard Torana setup is known for locking the rears up before the fronts almost always.

Then again I'm sure the forward rake on your car and the V8 in the front makes it a whole different ballgame in comparison to mine.

[TerrA LX]

Ah yeah Heath I forgot Stew and Ross have got all that stuff.
Hey do you find that your rear wheels lock up easily under heavy braking? Cos mine lock way too easily but i'm reluctant to loosen the adjuster off any more because it effects the point which the handbrake grabs. I was thinking perhaps the drums could just be out of round and grab too hard at a couple of points.

I have heard that there are a few different size wheel cylinders to suit different size cars and this can give the same problems with early lock up if interchanged. With the event of these old cars dying out sometimes spare parts shops supply the wrong ones.
Maybe Datto can shed some light on it.

[Heath]

Well it has been a while...

I've been doing a lot of k's in the car and it's a bit sad so I thought it was about time I get my arse into gear and give it some love. I've made a pretty considerable list of things that I want to do on it but they will all take some time and money.

One of the items was sorting out the front end. It has never had a swaybar because it doesn't have the holes in the crossmember and the extractors that are installed are really bad for clearance and won't actually allow one to be fitted, the bushes were never much chop, and it never sat nicely (left to right or front to rear). On the weekend I put it on the hoist and spent so much time working on it, and didn't get everything I wanted to do done, and ended up lowering it far too much. Miscalculated some stuff and ended up with a car that looks pretty stupid and is ridiculously impractical. Anyway, here's the pics

How I left it when I first changed the springs ages ago:



After much stuffing around lifting the car off its crossmember, I got the top arms off:

Gave it a clean up before sandblasting

Then gave them a coat of some KBS chassis black paint I bought. Not many distributors that I know of in Melbourne, I got mine from Heritage Holden in Lilydale and I'm really impressed with the product. Similar to POR15 apparently but I've never used that product.


I tried using an adjustable spreader tool on the arms first but I didn't like how it was going. Still tried to bend the arm awkwardly and brought the centres too close to each other. I then over-extended the spreader tool to get the arm back to how it was and got the pipe etc to press it in a way that I thought was far superior.
Pressing the first bush in:

Pressing the second bush in: (tricky because of the cast pivot arm obviously)








And the final result of lowering it about twice as much as I wanted.


Next step is raising it up a bit, getting a good wheel alignment. Then replacing my exhaust with something that has some clearance and fitting a front swaybar. When I've done all that I might pull the motor out.

[MRLXSS]

... and ended up lowering it far too much. Miscalculated some stuff and ended up with a car that looks pretty stupid and is ridiculously impractical. Anyway, here's the pics

And the final result of lowering it about twice as much as I wanted.

Bull shit!! Sits perfect!!! Me Likey!

[LXCHEV]

Nice work with the brakes, awesome result. I think I need to do the same thing with my hatchback.

Love the look of the KBS chassis black, I've been wanting to buy some of that stuff myself. It's just brush on yeah? And I assume you didn't worry about priming or anything, just straight on with the black?

[Heath]

I bought the gloss KBS stuff but satin black would probably be better again in some ways. I kinda don't like satin finishes much because I don't know how to maintain them. But for under the car... probably coulda/shoulda gone satin lol.

The KBS product I bought was $82 for 1L of it, and apparently it is superior to POR15 in a few ways but that's just heresay.

Yeah Brad I've had a swaybar painted up with new bushes, ready to go on the car for like over a year haha

The car sits like shit, trust me, the photo doesn't show it. I'm swapping springs again tomorrow and should have the ride height sorted by the weekend.

Ohh yeah and I bought Brad's old extractors so I will rip mine out and try and attach those ones to my exhaust system when I get access to a welder & hoist again haha