As someone accustomed to seeing bright-red brakes, let me offer a few
comments and tips. One cheap improvement that can be made is to cut a
radial slot in the brake pads with a hacksaw. This "gas slot" uses
virtually no pad area, but allows trapped gasses to escape from under the
pad. Another cheapie is to remove the sheet-metal dust shields completely.
It's astonishing how much heat they hold by preventing air circulation. (I
did this on my rally car and suddenly had brakes at the end of every
stage.) Make sure the front-rear bias is as good as it can be by checking
the rear shoe adjustment often. Even though the rears do a smaller share,
they need to come on at the right time.
More expensive improvement can be found by going to an open alloy wheel and
bigger calipers with a bias adjuster, but this is not something for the
casual street car.
Phil Barnes (peb3@cornell.edu)
Cortland, NY (nowhere near New York City)
'71 TR6 CC61193L (22 year owner)
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