Mike,
> Question about my stock Bugeye:
>
> Under semi-hard breaking my rear wheels tend to lock up first. The
> front tires have never locked up. This leads me to believe that there
> is a problem with my front brakes (and that I am leaving some braking
> capability one the table). I have spent some time debugging the front
> brakes - checking them, bleeding them, etc.
>
> While sitting in the office thinking about what to do next I had a
> though - maybe this is characteristic of the weak front drums on the
> early Sprites.
>
Back in the 60's we had to run drums on Bugeyes in SCCA. It's been a while,
but I do recall being able to lock fronts. One of the problems with stock
Bugeyes is that the rear springs are way too stiff relative to the fronts.
I wouldn't be surprised that you're locking the rears first under heavy
braking partially because you are unloading the rear wheels (nose dive) and
perhaps losing traction because of the lightly loaded wheel hitting
relatively minor imperfections in the road.
If you stay with drums and want to fix them (and have some money to spend),
you can investigate some of the following solutions:
1. softer rear springs
2. a really good rebuild of the fronts with high adhesion brake material
3. a front/rear proportioning valve (allowing to reduce the pressure on the
rears)
4. a dual braking system with proportioning adjustment
Myles Winbigler
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