Adequate, or better, brakes in an early bay?

[Tbob]

I own a 1969 bay that I have had since 1973, and the brakes have never been very good. My 1973 with discs are hands and feet better. It has come to the point that I no longer drive my 1969, as the traffic has increased in the small town where it is garaged to a point it is no longer safe to drive. I have read with anticipation the many posts about brakes trying to find out what I am missing, as some seem to be quite enamored with the 4 wheel drums. I was a VW technician back in the late 1970's, and all the drum brake busses I worked on stopped about like mine. I probably did 100 brake jobs, and bled and adjusted 100's more. While it is possible that I, and the shop I worked for, and the old Factory trained German that I worked for, may have missed something, I do not think that is likely. I believe that my brakes are adjusted and bled properly, and the bus stops straight and with good pedal pressure. Every brake component has been replaced multiple times over my stewardship of this vehicle, sometimes with factory parts and sometimes with aftermarket and it has always been just adequate, not excellent, as some seem to report.
So, what might I be missing?
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1969 Deluxe, owned since 1973
1973 Westfalia, owned since 1983
1980 Westfalia, watercooled conversion
1985 Westfalia, stock!
1986 Westfakia, Audi I-4 conversion
A couple of trucks and a couple of Jeeps

[SGKent]

Have you ever gone down the street with no one around, gotten up to about 30 MPH and just slammed on the brakes as hard as you can? Then put the parking brake on, get out and look at the skid marks. Do all 4 lay down rubber? Do none lay down?
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“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin

[Abscate]

Both the discs and drums on Bays can lock all four wheels when applied hard, in good working order. You have to keep up with the adjustment to keep the brakes shoe material in contact with the drum, if you don't adjust them enough, you lose braking force.

Adjust until the wheel doesn't move, then release 2-3 clicks only.
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.ssS!

[aeromech]

I’ve helped several early bus owners improve their 4 wheel drum braking by installing a 1971 booster and master cylinder. Good results and happy customers.

1). Get a 1971 booster and mc plus rod to pedal
2). Weld a plate to the beam on which to mount the booster
3). Lengthen the rod by 1inch
4). Mount the components and modify the hard brake lines to the mc
5). Tap into the intake manifold and run power brake vacuum hose up to the booster
6). Modify the brake switch wiring to reach
7). Run a line from the upper reservoir to the lower reservoir for fluid.
_________________
Lead Mechanic: San Diego Air and Space Museum
Licensed Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic
Licensed Pilot (Single engine Land)
Boeing 727,737-200-300-400,757,767
Airbus A319,320,321
DC9/MD80
BAe146
Fokker F28/F100
VW type 1 1962,63,65,69,72
VW Type 2 1971 (3 ea.) 1978, 1969
VW Jetta
VW Passat
Capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound

[skills@eurocarsplus]

the best bay with drums I have ever driven has been vwpieces 68.

trick is quality parts...and make sure you arc the shoes. no one does this anymore. every shitbox air cooled that rolls through this dump I call I shop gets the brakes done to the 9's. every single client calls back within minutes to tell me that they have never had brakes so good in that car.

having said that, I would switch to disk's in a heartbeat. problem with drums is they always need a click or 2 every so often to stay minty fresh....
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[SamboSamba22]

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The Bus Barn Ltd. Co.

Oct. ’67 Double Cab (’68 Crew Cab)
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March '69 Delivery (Panel Bus)
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[Zed999]

[airschooled]

What's the difference between a stock drum setup with a booster, and a stock drum setup and pushing harder?

--

The secret to drums that GRAB is geometry adjustment. But correct adjustment DOES NOT just mean tight. Properly adjusted drums will allow the whole pad to contact the drum. This means starting with shoes that match the arc of the drum, yes, but that's just a good starting point. If your brake shoes grab the drum at the tip-top of the pedal travel, you'll only be stopping the car with a portion of the shoe.

After a few thousand miles with a new front drum/shoe setup, remove the drums and inspect the shoes' wear areas. (This only takes a few hundred miles if you've arced the shoes to the drums.) If the shoes are wearing significantly more on one edge or another, (leading or trailing,) adjust your overall shoe position to encourage more of the shoe to contact the drum. You can gain quite a bit of stopping power this way.

This isn't in any book, but it is my experience down the back side of every mountain range in the continental US. …And if your brake pedal goes past the accelerator pedal at rest, you've gone too far.

Robbie
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[Tbob]

Thanks, Guys, for the replies. I am 99 percent sure that my 1969 will not lock up the brakes at all. I am virtually certain it never did. In normal driving conditions, with people cutting in/out when you need every foot of stopping distance, I have had numerous occasions where I was not sure I was going to stop in time. Hence, I stopped driving it. That was 5 years ago.
Aeromech, I appreciate your ground breaking work on the power brake install, I should have posted that I have already gathered the necessary pieces for the conversion, all I lack is the booster mount for the beam and to send the booster off for rebuild.
I understand arcing brake shoes and the importance thereof, but in the last few years, maybe the last couple of decades(?) brake shoes have been coming through with "pre-arced" written right on the package. Coincidentally, in my neck of the woods at least, no one arcs brake shoes anymore. The concept is gone, the machines are gone, heck, even the automotive machine shops are gone! I also have these adjusted what I believe to be correct, as you have verified, Abscate, tighten the adjuster until it is so tight you cannot spin the wheel anymore (wheel off ground and spinnable, of course)and then 2-3 or 4 clicks until the wheel spins with no serious drag. Brake pedal pressure is excellent, no mush, pedal never goes below acc. pedal as Robbie posted.
I guess the real question I should have posted is this: All my experience with drum brakes has been that they are not nearly as good as the discs. Yet there is a small minority here that seems not just satisfied with their drums,but almost enamored with them. Reading between the lines in the responses, it appears that the tips are:
1. Use quality components.
2. Make sure the shoes are arced to the drums.
3. Make sure everything is in tip top shape.
I believe I have done all that, multiple times over the decades.
Then, according to that small minority, I should have very adequate brakes. This has never been my experience, and before I go to the expense of a disc conversion, I wanted to know if somehow, some way, I was missing something.
_________________
1969 Deluxe, owned since 1973
1973 Westfalia, owned since 1983
1980 Westfalia, watercooled conversion
1985 Westfalia, stock!
1986 Westfakia, Audi I-4 conversion
A couple of trucks and a couple of Jeeps

[raygreenwood]

Robbie and Skills are spot on.....its a combination of geometry and materials.

1. Any drum brake unit without a well designed...."functional"....self adjuster......I consider dangerous unless you are really diligent.

When I lived in Atlanta....all hills and high speed traffic.....and drove an insane amount of miles per week on my air cooled DD.....about 700-800... (not a bus....but drums in the rear)....the rear drums needed adjusting .....a click on each lead shoe snd half a click on each trail shoe.....about every 10-14 days or there was a noticable increase in forward inertia pitch and an increase in stopping distance. Dangerous in a city of all hills and bumper to bumper.

I cannot imagine the insanity of 2000 more pounds of weight and drums up front as well.

But...to skills point......whenever I had to change rear shoes.....they had to be shaped to fit. I had this done at a small repair shop that did brake and clutch rebuilding. Huge difference.

They could order properly arc'd shoe material (get to the material in a minute)....for $$.....which I could not afford. Or.....the would grind/shape for a "decent" fit....better than out of the box......for about half. It was still a lot of $ for me at the time but was worth it.

2. The material. The 2nd time I went in.....and the shoe material I had was slightly smoked.....the guy at the shop suggested a Mintex semi-metallic shoe material......which ding'd a "duh" bell in my head because I had already changed to a Mintex metallic on the front pads a year earlier....to excellent effect.

If originality is your key....sure....stay drums. If safety, longevity and driveability are your key.....I would change to discs....if for nothing else....for the ability to keep them adjusted perfectly at all times (which is huge) and the ability to get a wider range of quality friction material.
Ray

[aeromech]

Non boosted disc brakes aren’t worth the trouble. Seems like you just need to do the booster mod and be forever happy.
_________________
Lead Mechanic: San Diego Air and Space Museum
Licensed Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic
Licensed Pilot (Single engine Land)
Boeing 727,737-200-300-400,757,767
Airbus A319,320,321
DC9/MD80
BAe146
Fokker F28/F100
VW type 1 1962,63,65,69,72
VW Type 2 1971 (3 ea.) 1978, 1969
VW Jetta
VW Passat
Capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound

[SGKent]

yes I prefer disks because they are easier to service, other than having to adjust drum brakes, they fade more when red hot, and are slippery when submersed, but drums are fine. If you can't lock them then they weren't installed and adjusted properly.

* Drums must be withing legal limit and as close to stock diameter as possible

* Shoes must be arced.

* Drums must not be glazed

* Adjustments must be proper

* Use the best lining possibe. ATE, Bendix, are good ones.

It is not only that the shops that arced shoes are gone, but the mechanics who understood how to adjust drum brakes are mostly gone too.
_________________
“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin

[SGKent]

There is a REALLY easy and obvious solution here. Colin was in Pensacola over wintering. Get with him asap and have him look over the brakes. He'll be leaving soon on his annual cross country tour. https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=2768
_________________
“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin

[Wildthings]

You can get your shoes lined with a variety of different materials. Since it sounds like you don't drive it all that much you could probably go with a more aggressive friction material and not worry about the extra wear on the drums.

FWIW, since I have no one local to re-arc brake shoes, I have learned to adjust the shoes a bit on the tight side when I first install new shoes and then watch for heat the first few miles I drive after that. If the brakes are getting unacceptably hot or obviously dragging, I let them cool and then back them off one click and try again. After a few hundred miles if they are running cool, I will add that click back and again watch for heat.

Personally I would want to install a booster whether I had drum or disc brakes. By the standard of many cars out there, even with a booster a Transporter with disc brakes takes extra force to stop.

[aeromech]

Done this many times. No issues. Happy customers.

_________________
Lead Mechanic: San Diego Air and Space Museum
Licensed Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic
Licensed Pilot (Single engine Land)
Boeing 727,737-200-300-400,757,767
Airbus A319,320,321
DC9/MD80
BAe146
Fokker F28/F100
VW type 1 1962,63,65,69,72
VW Type 2 1971 (3 ea.) 1978, 1969
VW Jetta
VW Passat
Capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound

[raygreenwood]

[aeromech]

Driver comfort and stopping power. I’ve installed two boosters for ladies with good results. I’ve driven the buses before the mod anc then after. Huge change for the better. Bus retains the original wheels for that stock look.
_________________
Lead Mechanic: San Diego Air and Space Museum
Licensed Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic
Licensed Pilot (Single engine Land)
Boeing 727,737-200-300-400,757,767
Airbus A319,320,321
DC9/MD80
BAe146
Fokker F28/F100
VW type 1 1962,63,65,69,72
VW Type 2 1971 (3 ea.) 1978, 1969
VW Jetta
VW Passat
Capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound

[lintbrush]

In my 1970, I essentially overhauled the entire brake system. I started with replacing a few leaky cylinders, but when I still couldn’t easily lock up the wheels, I decided to stop messing around and replaced all the old brake lines, wheel cylinders, pads, German MC, adjusted and power bled. The result was easy lockup of all wheels - great!

What my remaining issue was when things heated up in stop/go traffic and then opened up and I was going 60 and traffic would suddenly stop. Not good. Also, driving in heavy rain did not instill a lot of confidence. So I went to front disc. All good now. I know mileage varies greatly depending on parts, proper install/adjustments, etc, but that’s just my experience. Good luck.

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1970 Westfalia Campmobile - SF Bay Area
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[wihr]

As I noted in another thread, I use fairly "soft" linings. Yes, they wear faster, but they brake better than scintered iron racing shoes.

WW
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WIHR

1970 Campmobile "Van Ordinaire"
2009 Lincoln Town Car "Behemoth"
1969 Lambretta 150 DL "Nina"
1962 Matchless G 12 CS 650cc

[ivwshane]

How do you re-arc the brake shoes?

I've never heard of this and when I did my rear drums, one side would get hot and pulse when braking. I thought that the new drum was warped but is it possible that the shoe arc wasn't correct?
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77 westy 2.0 FI
69 ghia coup 1600dp
70 single cab