Rear disc brakes

[Marco Polo]

I was talking to a friend of mine that is building a kit car last night and he is fitting Ford Sierra rear calipers and discs to his kit car. The calipers have a mechanical linkage for the hand brake and the discs have a similar hole patten to the Stag. It appears that it may be a "fairly" easy modification to carry out. Has anybody already done it or used another combination of disks and calipers?
I'm going to be in the UK at the weekend and staying for approximately 6 weeks to attend a course in the Gloucester area so will have a bit of spare time to acumulate the necessary parts.

regards,
Raoul

[martin]

Hi Raoul, I do hope you enjoy your visit. There is an argument that rear discs throw the brake balance all to hell, because they're too efficient. No personal experience, but it's a pretty convincing argument. Martin.

[Stagdad]

I've got rear discs and they felt fine with standard front brakes although I did fit a brake bias valve thinking I would need it ,found I didn't so took it off .just in the middle of fitting wilwoods on the front so will see how the balance is then.Cheers Steve

[Westfaling]

Every car I've owned that has had rear discs has been a pain in the ass! Not when new but after 6-7 years they rust up, seize up or the handbrake mechanism packs up. This applies to Japanese and German cars. I think it's basically because they don't do much work. There are well documented cases in the USA of GM rear discs never actually working on a whole range of cars. I prefer rear drums - they don't work very well but never seem to get much worse!
However after 2 hours trying to reassemble a rear brake on the Stag this week I could be changing my mind!
Nick

[martin]

Hi Nick, next time, take two or three detailed photographs, they're not that hard to deal with, but appear illogical, so working out where all the bits go can be impossible. Martin.

[v8wgm]

Hi Raoul,

The Monarch rear disc kit uses the Sierra caliper, though I'm not 100% what the disc is off. You will need a bias valve to balance the braking system with these fitted.

The caliper is mounted on a 6mm laser-cut mild steel plate that bolts between the outer hub & the trailing arm.

I've attached a couple of very old & low quality photos for you to see if you can recognise anything.

jvn92.jpgjvn82.jpgjvn83.jpgjvn91.jpg

Gavin

[new to this]

Raoul

im in the middle of fiitting vented disc up front using the stag caliper, and then im fitting granada mk3 rear brake calipers they use the disc for the hand brake not like other cars where the hand brake uses brake shoes and brakes are disc if you know what i mean, and the rear disc im using is rover 600 ( the rover disc is set back far enough so the caliper dose not hit the inside of the wheel

p.s you can also use audi tt rear calipers ( same hand brake mech )

dave

[stag8manod]

Hi, In the late 1960s and the early 1970s when standard New Zealand assembled (min 200 identical) series production car racing was very popular and well supported. The main race at Pukekohe was 6 hours long, starting at 4pm until approx 9.30pm to give a night element. Assembly companys and private teams would enter 3 car teams. I'll get back to the point. New Zealand Motor Corparation ( I think or the equivalent) entered 3 Triumph Mk2 2.5 PIs. Half to 2/3rds though the race they developed rear brake problems which would have caused the team to retire. The Team appealed to the Race Stewards and got permission to blank off the rear brakes and continue racing. The result being their lap times dropped by only 1.5 to 2.0 seconds. I have lapped the circuit many times and there are 2 corners which require hard braking, one from top speed. Showing rear brakes don't do much work even at race speed. To ensure strict compliance race and class winners were impounded immediately and stripped and checked.
Cheers Ian A

[stag8manod]

Hi All, Me again. At home we run a Subaru Legacy 250 touring estate as a family car. It has now done over 200,000 km (owned since 58,000) I recently replaced all discs and pads due to fair wear. Never a moments trouble.
Cheers Ian A

[Marco Polo]

Raoul

im in the middle of fiitting vented disc up front using the stag caliper, and then im fitting granada mk3 rear brake calipers they use the disc for the hand brake not like other cars where the hand brake uses brake shoes and brakes are disc if you know what i mean, and the rear disc im using is rover 600 ( the rover disc is set back far enough so the caliper dose not hit the inside of the wheel

p.s you can also use audi tt rear calipers ( same hand brake mech )

dave

Does the Rover disc have an identical stud pattern? What vented disc are you using at the front?
Thanks in advance,
Raoul