Expected Braking Performance

[MichaelBeck]

Hi All

Interested to see what braking performance is considered good / normal for a 7' drum braked Minor.
After replacing wheel cylinders, lines & the master cylinder my car has a good pedal ending ! 2 inches from the floor & under a hard stop will lock the rear wheels & stop straight with a little squirreling from the front.

I have new shoes on the shelf but as the old ones were not glazed / contaminated or badly worn i elected to re use them.

Would you expect the front brakes to be able to be locked up?

Thanks

[JOWETTJAVELIN]

No they will not necessarily lock up and that is a good thing. Depends on the road surface. I find the 7" drums adequate when they are well maintained, and I think that's what some people fail to grasp - that cars need maintenance.

[ManyMinors]

One of my Minors still has the original 7inch front brakes. As said above, they are perfectly adequate in a smaller engined car. One thing, often overlooked, is that drum brakes only work well with good quality lining material and some of the new brake shoes available are POOR! I found it difficult to get good quality front brake shoes for mine and bought some new/old stock ones in the end. I can lock up the front brakes if I want to but that isn't really my aim generally.....

[MorrisJohn]

As has been said above, some of the new shoes are poor.

I have 8” drums. A new set of pattern shoes wouldn’t even adjust up correctly to brand new drums. I know some people use them without issue, but I changed the shoes for a set of Mintex ones and problem solved!

[MichaelBeck]

Thanks all for the replies

These shoes have been on the car since i bought it over 12 years ago & I consider it stops fine for non assisted 7' drum brakes.
It locks the rear easily but not the front on smooth dry asphalt. About 5 years (& 60 miles ago) the drums were resurfaced round.

I was going to rough up the drum & lining surface although i'm just using them heavily to take off any surface contaminants or glazing.

Just looking for comparisons to benchmark my car vs 'normal / expected'