Opinion's needed on something ive made?

I was not happy with the look and build quality of the 'X' brake and had a brainstorming over the last 2 months with my engineering shop that makes a lot of my bits and pieces, we came up with this below - it uses the original brake drum turned into a smaller rotor for clearance, and a machined shoe assembly that holds a Willwood caliper, im going to fit this asap and see if it holds better than the existing drum - the spec's from the manufacturer of the caliper with the thickness and diameter of the rotor they reckon it should exceed the clamping force of the OEM drum - need to test it myself, whole thing is made of aluminum & stainless fasteners and we hit upon the idea of making the caliper free floating in guide rails to even pad wear and deal with endfloat of lifted trucks.

Im not sure what id ask to make more id like to field this out there it might be meaningless and OTT for some people other may be happy with the drum - personally i was fed up with catching it on breakovers and wanted something a little better, as said i have not fitted it yet and intend to soon and wanted to see what others thought and if they liked it would it be worth making more for others i can make this fit any truck that has a drum e-brake from Landy and Yota etc

Just want an honest opinion not a flaming session like the last legendary one and im not saying lookee me arnt i fooking brilliant just thought id have a go at designing something for my own rig and would like to know if others have considered it. Cheers Dom

p m said:

Dom, I have something that I could use it in.

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Sure what - how can i help? Cheers Dom

The major draw back to the drum brake that I see is it filling up with muck. This eliminates that at least.

if it would hold better i'd be interested. looks cool.

First off, I salute the creativity and ingenuity that went into this. It's a very interesting idea. But... drums generally make better parking brakes due to the substantially larger surface area of shoes vs pads; and the servo action of the drum. So I don't see how it will hold better than the factory unit. All that said, I do really want to know how it turns out.

http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=15083

don't stand in front of the car when you first test it

Nice work! I saw the Scorpion Racing website in the UK has one for sale. They should give you a guide price.

Andy

lrcb40 said:

Nice work! I saw the Scorpion Racing website in the UK has one for sale. They should give you a guide price.

Andy

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Thanks all for the kind words - I had a look at the thread on the LR4x4 forum that was posted - interesting the bloke Si that makes the X brake in the UK gave some input - im going to have to get this fitted to my own rig and see how much it holds i think the local transport testing station has a brake load tester so ill try and get some before and after stats - I need to be sure im using a good enough caliper Si apparently sells his out to people to make there own so if the Willwood does explode then i have a tried and tested option on hand and i can quite easily modify the mount to fit this, obviously ive over engineered the thing every time my eastern Europe engineer friend Jos makes a prototype for me does the thing and the next and so on as if its going in some gallery as an object d'art lol i try and tell him but he refuses to compromise his work, only thing is the pricing if im gonna sell these i have to ensure that materials are covered and a reasonable but not userist margin we all know that bringing in something from the UK is ridiculously expensive insofar of currency conversion's customs brokerage and shipping.

The main thing is that i didn't copy somebody else's product and try to fleece it as my own, i simply saw what was out there and thought there has to be a different way i initially was going to go with a hydraulic dirt bike caliper and master assembly but that would be completely over the top.

Let me fit it ill give it a test run at the OVLR birthday party RTV and i obviously need to traffic test the thing - its a serious issue to modify a trucks emergency brakes and need to know that it works better than the drum, all of us make mods on our trucks and the last thing we want is a lawsuit there are not many insurance folks out there that understand the off roading culture as we enjoy modifying an already good truck however we all know were in the land that people don't understand caveat empar and will sue over the heat of a morning coffee - so ill say for now this is for off road trucks only let me test the thing if it screws up ill go back and get it right - this is obviously the prototype id be happy to make a 2nd so i can get extra feedback with different driving habits.

Couple of other things in the works coming next week are big recovery shackles with machined bade mounts that you can place and weld on your front rear ends, and the other handy thing is that i already sell the 2+1/4 hub nut spanner from Britpart but the first time i used it i realized it needs an insert to take a 1/2 drive torque wrench - so im identifying things i can use and if people want them then im happy to put out there.

Cheers & thanks for not flaming me guys!

Dom

I would think this option would work better than a drum when "Cutting". Meaning, pulling the e-brake with the center diff unlocked, and spinning around turns/trees/rocks in FWD. The drum works "ok" for doing this, but does not hold all that well.

In addition, after running in silt or muddy areas, you would not have to listen to that awful scraping noise when mud and junk get caught into the drum....

I like the idea, but Dom's design needs some cleaning up. Not a bad start, though.