Everyone that has done the brake conversion
seems
quite pleased with it, and AAJ seems to have
the
solution at a fair enough price.
That said, I personally think that an awful lot
of
unwarranted and negative noise has been made about
the
stock brakes, and the pattern that I think I see
is
one of people that try to apply common sense and
past
experience on other brake systems to this one and
then
have to acutally read some instructions, if they
read
anything at all. The other thing that seems to go
on
is that people faced with clapped out, 40+ year
old
brakes are facing replacement costs and then try to
go
out and re-engineer their car WITHOUT ever
bothering
to try a correctly functioning set of stock
brakes,
presuming that they must be awful without
confirming
that to be a fact.
In that situation, you're bound to hear reports
about
how awful and difficult things were for a
person,
especially if doing the conversion was
subsequently
easier.
On the other hand, if you read the MTSC booklet
that
goes through the steps one at a time as posted on
the
site, follow the instuctions, and expect the sort
of
brakes that were available back then, well, I
doubt
you'll be disappointed.
Note that Chrysler was never sued for having
inadequate brakes, there was never a recall, and
aside
from the obvious differences between disc/drum,
unless
you plan to do aggressive driving, the stock
stuff
should be just fine.
One complaint I have is with the "organic"
material
they use on brake shoes. I heard someplace that it's
gound up peach pits or something.
I got a set of shoes and had "original" material
put
on.
The kind that was involved in lawsuits awhile
back and starts with an A. Well I told the kids up
the block not to lick the brakedust on my car
wheels
and everything works better now that I'm using
them.
So:
New shoes + inept installation = complaints, and
normally complaints travel around the world
before
good results get their shoes tied.
I say stay stock if you plan to do anything aside
from
gentle, responsible driving.
Good luck, and thank you for writing in.
-Kenyon
Hi Everyone,
I have been a member of this online club for
many
years but in the last several years I have
not
"spoken" via email at all. I have been checking in
from time to time and always find interesting
and
informative conversation going on. What a
wonderful group of people Imperial owners
are!!
I have recently sold cars leaving me with only
my
'57 Imperial. Now I am going to concentrate on
it.
Right now it needs some brake wheel cylinder work.
I
was wondering if anyone has done an AAJ
conversion on a '57 or similar pitting on
disk
brakes and eliminating the factory front drums
and
the factory master cylinder. I want to convert the
system to a dual circuit master cylinder if
I'm
going to do a conversion.
The first question really is, however, with
modest
driving, is it possible to get the factory brakes
to
be reliable without constant fiddling and
adjusting.
I've heard stories of these
"total contact" brakes
being very fussy, especially on Plymouths and
Dodges
etc.
I won't need extreme brake response as I will
drive the car gently anyway. My car is really in
excellent condition as it has only 25,000
original
miles and has been treated well all it's
life. The
biggest brake problem to date has been
hydraulic
leaks at the wheel cylinders. Some of the problem
surely has been due to non-use and that
condition
will improve now.
Thanks,
Tim
-----------------
This message was sent to you by the Imperial
Mailing
List. Please
response will be
shared with everyone. Private messages (and
attachments) for the
Administrators should be sent to
To UN-SUBSCRIBE, go to
____________________________________________________________________________________
Looking for last minute shopping deals?
This message was sent to you by the Imperial
Mailing List. Please
shared with everyone. Private messages (and
attachments) for the
Back to the Home of the Forward Look Network