IML: anti-lock braking

[Kate Triplett <kate_triplett@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hear, hear Ken!

that is called "DRIVING", and is rapidly becoming a lost art, IMHO. I watch the dingabts, idiots and yo-yos on the freeways of my daily (over an hour each way) commute, and wonder that they manage to get anyplace at all. No spatial sense, no ability to mentally calculate closing distances or speed, and seemingly a total inability to LOOK OUT THE DAMN WINDOW!! for other traffic. Sheesh/......

I remember all too well teaching my (now grown) son to drive - he had an insipid little hatchback B210 that he had to get running before he could drive it - so we did lessons in my Doggy Dodge '81 D-150, with slant 6 and big truck four-speed. Front discs, yes, but drums on the back and WAY less weight in the rear than in the front. One of the above-mentioned idiots dived out right in front of us at an intersection, causing me to lay down an emergency stop. Instinct and good habits kept the little pickup relatively straight and we didn't nail the sucker, but
 Son was fairly pale by the time we got her stopped, inches from Idiot's bumper. He remarked later that my brake foot was really working - and now he knew what the anti-lock systems on Drivers' Ed cars were SUPPOSED to work like. 

Steering, brake and throttle coordination are my preference any day over failure prone "automated" systems.

Kate Triplett
proud owner of "Lucille" 1968 Crown
Homesick Angels Farm
www.IrishHuntersandJumpers.com

<QUOTE>
From: "Ken Lang" <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: IML: Drums to Discs
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 05:46:04 -0700
Reply-To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Tom,

I have not seen any after-market anti-lock brake
 systems available for any
car much less an Imperial.  For anti-lock brakes to work each wheel needs to
have sensors that monitor their movement.  There needs to be a set of pump
motors that pump in a pulsating fashion to each wheel, overriding your
efforts with the brake pedal.  And this is all controlled by an on-board
computer that thinks it knows how to stop better than you do.

All this was done to get around the fact that most people have lost or 
never had the skill to modulate their brakes in an emergency.  Numerous tests 
over the years have shown that anti-lock brakes are only effective in the rain.
Manually operating your brakes on all other surfaces (snow, ice, gravel,
sand, etc) produces better results than the anti-lock systems.

 Personally, if I could remove the anti-lock system from my newer  vehicles, I
would.

Ken

67 Crown 4 Dr Ht