Make my car stop!

[craigvwdude]

Fellas
getting ready to start on my 62 bug, and i want to make it stop big time! To me there's no such thing as too much braking.
Is there any conversions for the front and rear without spending the big bucks and buying a kit? I don't mind having to fab up brakets ect..
I figured at least a couple of guys have fabricated some kind of disk brake set up.

Let me know what you guys think!

Thanks!
Craig

[petew]

first up, get a Ball joint/IRS pan to go under the 62 body and save yourself a whole bunch of hassles. The late spindles allow discs to go straight on and you can use the twin spot front calipers off a type 3 to get the best braking on the front. they also bolt straight up. slotted rotors are good value too and Kircsher (I think) in germany make a set of ventilated rotors for them although they cost a bit. Up the back, type 3 squareback drums are very good as well. they are wider than the stocker beetle units and bolt on. if you don't like rear drums, 944 porsche trailing arms bolt straight up and have discs on them stock. of course a golf/or late beetle master cylinder is best for either setup.

hope that helps.

[volkswagen50]

The type three rear drums are also larger than beetle drums diameter wise. They are the same diameter as super beetle fronts. The actual size escapes me. Definitely use a latter master cylinder with DUAL circuits regardless of what pan you use. Good luck and keep us posted!

[Ozzie]

Brother, front discs & rear drums, very well maintained. Light wheels shod with good rubber. Thats just all you need. There comes a point where a sharper sword just does no more good,...

[bigGreen]

disc brakes on the rear is always a good idea on a rear engine car

[UK66Bug]

I have just done this to my car,http://www.volkszone.co.uk/VZi/showthread.php?t=382572

I did this with the fronts first but it was the rear that made the big difference.

[craigvwdude]

Thank guys!
To me, you can never have enough braking!

[Ozzie]

I'd like to explain. I'm on a low budget with a small engine. Lightened stock w/ great pads works for me. If I was humping some good HP from the rear, I would probably be looking for some more whoa.

[Piledriver]

Just don't get too carried away with huge brakes, especially rear brakes...

When you're standing on them, ~100% of the weight is on the front wheels.

If you can lock all 4, you have plenty of brakes.
The tires only have so much stop in them.

I have personally hoisted the rear wheels with STOCK brakes on a bone stock 66 Bug during a panic stop, w/cheap 165-R15s. Several witnesses, skid marks prove it, and I have seen it happen on other cars...
( I hit the idiots who head-on'd each other in front of me anyway, just not very hard, and I was able to drive home)

If they aren't well balanced, and the fronts or rears lock first...
Lets just say...Both suck badly, but going around corners backwards while at speed was never one of my favorite things.

If the brakes "go away" with heavy use, that's a completely different issue, please understand the difference.

[sunnydude98]

If I wanna do type 3 brakes, do I need to also change spindles? stock beetle spindles dont have a bracket for calipers do they?

[Piledriver]

If I wanna do type 3 brakes, do I need to also change spindles? stock beetle spindles dont have a bracket for calipers do they?

Many places sell spindles for discs, and someone probably makes adapters (caliper mounts) most are of the drop spindle variety, typically 2" or so.

If you have a Super, discs were common in Europe, rare in the US, apparently never a US factory option, but I have seen a few here and there over the years.

(My son picked up a set of discs/spindles/calipers last year, $75 IIRC)

[FJCamper]

When I built RetroRacing's '70 Ghia, I knew I had to have great brakes, not just good ones. The test would be a half hour at a time, full throttle, on fast road courses.

I installed crossdrilled front rotors from Airkewled and twin-pin Varga calipers up front, and had a specialty shop in California drill cooling holes in the "swept area" of the rear brake drums. I highly recommend the drilled rear drums. They have never faded on us. I used braided steel flex hoses, but the master cylinder stayed stock.

Stock "heavy duty" metallic brake pads just burned away in under fifteen minutes. Porterfield R4S pads fixed that.

I had had the experience of our IMSA Superbug (restricted to rear drums) doing well on stock brake shoes. The '70 Ghia did the same thing. After two seasons, the stock rear shoes were showing minimum wear. I changed them for an upgrade material anyway.

I use Castrol LMA brake fluid, and NAPA DOT-4, both equally successful. I tried some Prestone synthetic but it killed a master cylinder within hours! I actually saw it start to ooze out of the brake light switch plastic surrounding the brass male connector. The inner seals were ruined.

Anyway, our '70 braking combo has performed flawlessly, even on tracks such as Road Atlanta that are really hard on brakes -- even in August.

I installed four wheel disk brakes from Chirco on our '65 Carrera Panamericana Ghia (solid rotors, Varga calipers) and had good brakes overall, but had a soft brake pedal at times due to my use of the standard rear brake caliper bracket rather than the optional stiffer bracket, and to the fact (which Joe Chirco's Formula Vee website warns about) that some swing axle brake conversions need some bearing radial axis shimming to prevent axle movement and pad displacement.

It turns out that if there is any movement in the rear axle, from a flexing bracket or disk pressure on one pad, the affected pad(s) will depress into the caliper and have to be pushed out farther on first depressing the brake, making the pedal go almost to the floor. The second pump is okay.

That scares hell out of the driver on a mountain road.

The point of all this is that brakes you can bet your life on don't have to be exotic, just in good shape and adequate.

[Piledriver]

Drilled brake drums. Hmmmmm.

Thanks for the info, I always wondered why that wasn't done, now I understand... It's impossible, like bumblebees flying.

is http://www.chtopping.com/ where you sent yours?

Some other sites show segmented brake shoes (think slots) the combo would likely be excellent, and drums ARE much lighter than rotors... Those in the hunt for reduced unsprung weight might think twice about that disc upgrade now.

I have a late Vanagon and a Bay in the family, and several other vehicles that could use a "brake upgrade" like that, as IMHO the old VWs had GREAT brakes from the factory save for fade.
(IIRC the Super Beetle held the Motor Trend 70-0 braking distance record for over a decade... US spec, with DRUMS)

Also thank you for the heads up on the Prestone Synthetic, I have seen random issues in the past with nearly new but shot MC seals on various vehicles that now make sense.

(What's "synthetic" about it, anyway? Last I checked ethylene glycol wasn't exactly grown organically in a field...)

[sunnydude98]

Many places sell spindles for discs, and someone probably makes adapters (caliper mounts) most are of the drop spindle variety, typically 2" or so.

The reason I was asking, is becuase my car came with cb dropped drum spindles when I bought it, and I didnt really wanna shell out the money for a different set of spindles. If I make a bracket, do you suggest its forged or welded? Now as far as the back brakes, what do I have to strip from a type 3, just shoes and drums?

[FJCamper]

Yes, I used CH Topping. Their research on just how to drill drums is impressive, special pattern, certain size holes, etc.

They offered me "chilled drums" (cyrogenic frozen) to relieve stress and fight warping after being used. I took a chance and used plain new German drums and lucked out.

The drums are lighter, and we got to keep our hand brake. We gave up the hand brake on our PanAm Ghia disk brake conversion and had to carry a wheel chock.

However, something to say for rear disk conversions is you have instant visual access to the whole brake, and pad changes are easy. We had the unfortunate experience of a very rare condition in our rear drums, a slightly bent brake shoe tab that inserted into the adjuster.

When the bent tab held the shoe in the right place, the brakes were great. When the shoe slipped, the brakes had to be pumped once. Barret would come in after a track session and report that the brakes were soft at some point, but all checks (short of removing the drums) would show good brakes!

Since the condition wasn't consistent, and there was no fluid leakage from inside the drums, the drums were not removed until the end of the season, and the problem spotted.

We are unlikely to convert our '70 to rear disks as long as the drilled drums survive.

Oh- on the comment about the Super Bug beating all comers in the 70-0 test, that's excellent for street use, but the weakness in stock VW braking occurs above 70mph. A race car has to brake hard down from 100+ mph to 70. This is not being dismissive of the stock system. It's just a fact, such as coming off a long straight to a hard corner, and trying to brake as late as possible.