My 2 cents on disc brakes.....

[jeffinohio]

Shock towers were getting pretty rough on my Bug,so I got a new Brazilian beam.Decided if I was going to take the front end completely apart,might as well do the disc brake upgrade.I have had Bugs since the early 80s,but never had one with discs.Got the 2 1/2 drop spindle kit from EMPI.Put Timken bearings in it,other than that,straight out of the box.Kit seems very well made.Only had to use the small shims to center caliper.Same on both sides,so I was pretty impressed.Took my first drive today.Seated the pads with some hard stops,and......wasn't a whole lot better than the drums.Seemed to track straighter on hard braking,but other than that ,no biggie.Very good pedal,no adjustment,so I am not at all disappointed.Just not the night and day I was expecting after reading some of the posts.My 2 cents for what its worth.
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64 Sunroof
73 Standard
70 Convertible
67 Cougar
3 Subarus

[TDCTDI]

Give it a few hundred miles, the pads are still thick & still haven't seated/bedded completely. Then there's the fact that since the discs don't need to be adjusted, you won't have a constantly increasing travel brake pedal.
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Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


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An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[theKbStockpiler]

Discs have no power assist built into the design, Even with leading and trailing drum brakes one shoe is given a mechanical advantage and the spinning of the drum forces the shoe out.

People I have communicated on the forums with this info tell me that if it takes a lot of force to get a disc brake ACVW to stop it probably has the wrong master cylinder in it. This could be true is the cases where it actually does have the wrong master in it. I personally know people that did a disc brake conversion and said that it took a lot of foot effort to get the car to stop even when going slow. They said it had a new and correct master as far as they knew going by the part number.

With the ghia style brake conversion the pads are really small. Another aspect is the material used for the pad. I greatly prefer semi metallic or Autozone Golds if they are available. The pads that come factory on a new car are way too hard and have to get hot to work decent.
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My beetle is not competing with your beetle. I have the yellow beetle in my town. There is a red one, a green one ......
Use all safety devices including a mask.

[oprn]

Years ago I thought I was being smart and put type 3 discs on the front of my Super Beetle. Big disappointment!! Braking effort went way up and the rears tended to lock first. Upset the brake balance for sure.

It does not surprise me that the after market disc kits are very little better. Lots of guys just buy fronts or just buy rears so if there was a big change in effectiveness it could tend to toss those guys out of control in a bad situation leading to liability issues for the brake suppliers. Very few fellows have a well thought out plan to keep the whole system in balance and most don't do it for the braking advantage anyway. Just for the "Wow" factor!

That's how I have it pictured.

[awreed]

[theKbStockpiler]

I believe that the rears need to engage slightly before the fronts ( otherwise the rear of the car will pivot on the front) in a turn but the cylinders have to be about the same diameter so the the fronts or the rears don't engage way before the other. Some masters have 2 different sized pistons but I don't know specifically bout ACVW's.

In any event ,discs are not going to fade like a drum set up.
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My beetle is not competing with your beetle. I have the yellow beetle in my town. There is a red one, a green one ......
Use all safety devices including a mask.

[hitest]

Discs are only as good as the geometry of the front end they are braking. I am just fine with drums because any appreciable increase in braking assist is almost negated by the behavior of an 80-year old front beam design. The front ends dive and rebound, stock size tires lock up just the same, etc. I'm using my early 60s bugs and the '71 for comparison. My buses and Thing have stock drums as well.

I'd go discs if I were: towing; racing; or my commute included winding roads. But for the light- to- light traffic, I've never experienced fade or dissatisfaction with drums personally.
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[VW_Jimbo]

I always install disc brakes up front. I use the Empi kit and change the master cylinder from the 19mm model, to the 21mm model, as I remember seeing on several cars that came through my repair bay.

My car stops on a dime. It is WAY better than the drum brakes. There is a brake in sequence all disc brake pads have to go through after installation. I learned this back when I wrenched. Works great for me.

Hitest, when I had my 55 Bug, back in 1989, I drove through the dairylands out in Chino. It was flooded everywhere! I ended up driving very slowly due to the brakes not responding. I believe, thinking back, that the drum brakes had filled full of water and there was a noncompressable layer of water trapped between the drum and the shoes. Scared the crap out of me.

Since that time, I have always installed front disc brakes.

[jeffinohio]

I had done all of the lines and master cylinder a year ago.I have the late model mastercylinder.we drove some more last night,and I do like them.My pedal effort has not increased at all compared to drums.Would I change back to drum?No.I have a 64,would I change it to disc?Probably not.Good discussion guys.Thanks.
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64 Sunroof
73 Standard
70 Convertible
67 Cougar
3 Subarus

[EVfun]

[mark tucker]

Ive seen many people put new pads on or disc on and go out and see just hap much better they stop....witch kills the pads. they need some time to bed in and to heat stabilize all the way through. thus the reason many racers usualy buy pads that have already been bedded in on a special jig to properly "heat treat " the pads. a panic stop/hard stop/lets see how much better this is now stop on new pads is a sure way to kill the braking performance of the new pads.

[67rustavenger]

A few years ago. I installed a set of cross drilled slotted disc's and Hawk pads on my Pontiac.
The bed in on those was 500 miles. I could see the progression across the rotor as the pads bedded to them. This may seem a bit excessive. But that was the recommendation from Hawk.

Once the bedding process was complete. I can whoa that 4K beast from well over 120mhp. In very short order.

You have to take the time to bed the pads to the rotors.
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I have learned over the years.
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GFY's Xevin and VW_Jimbo!

[roger10101]

Hello all. What’s the cost of front disc brake set up for a 64 bug. I need one with zero offset and Porsche alloy pattern. Thanks in advance

[awreed]

[oprn]

[theKbStockpiler]

This is by far the best drum brake guide I'm aware of.

http://what-when-how.com/automobile/drum-brakes-automobile/

As stated here ,even having one leading shoe creates assist. It does not have to be duo servo.

Also , a smaller master cylinder bore creates greater force than a bigger bore.
_________________
My beetle is not competing with your beetle. I have the yellow beetle in my town. There is a red one, a green one ......
Use all safety devices including a mask.

[jeffinohio]

[theKbStockpiler]

I've done a lot of brake jobs professionally and worked with mechanics with different opinions. bedding in helps but is not night and day,maybe 10 percent. A directional surface on the rotor helps a slight amount too but not night or day either. I always did both because a thorough professional job calls for it.
_________________
My beetle is not competing with your beetle. I have the yellow beetle in my town. There is a red one, a green one ......
Use all safety devices including a mask.

[oprn]

[TDCTDI]