What's WRONG with this picture? Look close!!

I shot this in Charlotte a couple of weeks ago. Pretty interesting. What problem would one have besides never being able to travel in the rain?

 

Well, the radial tires are ugly, and that braided brake line looks so tightly strung that if it moved at all, it'd probably shear off. I'm probably missing something really obvious, though.

 

The Brake Shoes Are Exposed

OR SHALL I SAY,NO BACKING PLATES

 

Hey,

I guessed the braided brake line as well...

Dan

 

I think they are sold by Wilson Welding if I am not mistaken.

 

wow...thats odd...how do the shoes stay in place?

 

Where the fu#k is the backing plate?

 

Yeah, the tight brake line jumps out at me as the most wrong part of that picture.

 

holy ****....all of us replied at the same time.

 

Yeah...my guess is the banjo string brake line.....just don't make any turns!

 

How many times have you taken off drums and found springs broken? Few concerns a broken spring could do some damage on your car. If you look close he made "ears" to hold the retaining springs, they look a tad thin to me. Last backing plates help keep shoes from "drifting" sometimes.

 

Yeah the brake line is going to put an eye out when it lets loose, but I meant the backing plate or lack thereof. It sure caught my eye and I thought it was kinda cool, but I just kept finding reasons not to do it.

 

I bet they stay pretty cool, for drum brakes.

 

The front brake shoe ons the back and back brake shoe on the front! That will really limit the stopping power and wear the brake shoes out faster!

 

i know this type of mod has been done on drag cars long ago, sorry, cant give any specifics other than this link/picture.

should be ok because all the areas that need extra meat are there...

http://www.wilsonweldingandmachine.com/Skltn.jpg

 

My dad was telling me about that setup. (He saw it @ GG CLT as well.) He said he was thinking some old race cars may have something like that to reduce unsprung weight, but definitely agreed that it looks pretty spooky for street use...

It does LOOK cool, though.

 

unsprung weight and more than likely, brake fade....

 

they were used on modifieds into the mid 70s they were for unsprung weight and for cooling they work good just out dated themselves when disc came out

 

when were the hurst airhearts used? ive heard mid 60s...

on a side note, i was told that more innovative racers were adapting disk brakes on their cars as early as the late 40s/early 50s... this is in context to guys in the united states... i have no idea what europeans were doing at the time but perhaps some of the more advanced auto research going into sports cars at the time made its way to the states. i believe the disks came off small aircraft? im not sure.

does anyone have any additional information? perhaps some specifics?

 

How about this tidbit...

Experiments with disc-style brakes began in England in the 1890s; the first ever automobile disc brakes were patented by Frederick William Lanchester in his Birmingham factory in 1902, though it took another half century for his innovation to be widely adopted.

Disc brakes are hella old-skool bro! You drum brakers are frontin'.

 

I believe that Preston Tucker promised his investors, a**** many other things, that his fabulous "Torpedo" car would have disk brakes on it.

 

I missed that one.. looks like the backing plate is carved out to remove all unnecessary metal. the brake line scares me more then the brakes.. maybe none of it works,, its a spindle mount with "wanna-be" brakes

 

Well, aside from rain and the guitar string brake line, how about...what keeps small debris like rocks, sticks and the million other things that sit on the road out of your brake linings?
-Brad

 

That looks alot like the skeleton style backing plate that Wilson Welding does. No more flex than what is present in a full style backing plate. Does the same job.


jerry

 

i see the tabs for the shoe anchors and spring anchor, but what's to stop debris (sand, gravel....you know the stuff true drivers see) from getting in there.

 

That was exactly one of my thoughts. Could you just imagine the great scoring you could do to the drum.

 

saw that too,
but adjustments are a snap!

 

That brake line is a (gonna) snap.

 

its called a open air backing plate.It used buick drums and some aftermarket buick look alike drums all buick shoes and wheel cyls.these units were sold by saftey engineering, franklin,speeedway and a host of others.they were used on many circle track car into the 80s. vintage circle track restores pick them up. I have them on my 34 ford jalopy race car.

 

Look under a big truck sometime, the brakes are set up the same way.