RE: IML: AAJ vs stock brakes for 1957

[Kenyon Wills <imperialist1960@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Geoff Simpson <kiwiimp65@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 
> Going back even further I recall a feature article
> in Car and Driver (I think) about 1963 where they
> did a comparison test between a 600 Mercedes,a
> Lincoln,a Cadillac an IMPERIAL and a Rolls.When it
> came to brakes they rated the Rolls as having the
> best brakes.Guess what? Drums all round while the
> Merc  Im sure had discs.  

Good reference, Geoff.


I am sure that I know someone that has done the AAJ
conversion, but I'm not thinking about anyone off the
top of my head, so my following statement is not
pointed at anyone in particular, and I understand that
a disc conversion has it's upsides.  Nothing personal
if you're a disc-person, OK?

OK:

The pattern that I see here on an awful lot of these
inquiries seem to follow a similar pattern:

1.  Bought an old (imperial) car used.
2.  It's old/hammered/neglected, and the brakes are
shot at some level or another, requiring an impending
outlay of cash of some sort.
3.  Man's mind immediately starts looking for some way
to improve on the process with "bolt-in" performance
upgrades so as to get more for the money/time, as is
so very common to other types of cars' repair
"opportunities", since we are in a free-market,
capitalistic system where it pays to advertise "plug &
play" upgrades for all sorts of things on cars.

I suppose that I'm not the only one here that refuses
to pay much attention to professional TV sports and
has re-allocated the mental real-estate normally
occupied by who was MVP in 1965 to how old greasy crap
bolts together?  Payoff's probably about the same in
the end either way...

I'm inclined to say that re-jiggering things to make
them work better seems right up there with a genetic
craving for remote-control dominance and preference
for flames for cooking as far as predisposition goes.

So I guess what seems a shame to me is that folks,
when faced with the question of redoing brakes seem so
reluctant to grant that what came on the car
"could've" been actually OK and worth a shot at
rebuilding.

That '55 that I did up had some awfully narrow drums,
and it sure was reluctant to be a "snappy" stopper,
but it's 50 years old and antique for crying out loud,
so I drove it accordingly, and aside from staying away
from really steep hills when full of 5 people in San
Francisco, I never really had a problem with it.  I
have a new car for re-enacting Bullitt chase scenes
anyway.

Are we too far away from a world where there were NO
disc brakes so as to prompt so many to reach the
conclusion that what's on their car is inherently
bogus and should be swapped?

That fellow that redid his '61 for the Great Race
seems to be one of the few folks that would have had a
real need for discs - can't recall what he did, but if
you're farting around in your "old car", you can
afford some extra space around you, considering that
everyone else was so thoughtful as to have your
crumple zones built into THEIR cars.

Granted, there were some shaky, spindly brake systems
out there in the 30's 40's and 50's, but by 1960 it
seems, there had been an awful lot of engineering
energy spent on getting cars to stop, and I never hear
stories about how they were losing a significant % of
the population to brake failures - not like you hear
about preventable tragedies like you do with dunk
driving statistics and so forth anyway.

It's a really dumb thing to worry about - free country
and all that, but having to talk people down off the
ledge, especially on those 63-66 Bendix systems that
are really marvelous systems for what they are has
always seemed strange, but I keep trying to do it....




Maybe I should start watching sports instead - that
way I can spend that energy yelling at refs about bad
calls.  Heh!


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