TR Register Forum

TR owners sometimes neglect their back brakes only maintaining them when the handbrake won't adjust up.

When I built my long door TR2 about the only consumable item I reused were the rear brake shoes. They looked to have a lot of meat left but as it turned out I needed to have them on full adjustment. Even then they weren't quite there. I suspect the shoes were aftermarket and not quite right.

The brakes were very good, David Clark said they were the best he had seen on a drum braked Triumph. But I wasn't happy so I had a new set of oversized shoes made up. I fitted them yesterday, after much filing to get them to shape, and took the car for a brief test drive this morning.

The brakes are absolutely superb, nearly as good as the C250 Merc. A hard stop from 70 km/h was straight and smooth with much more bight than before.

Lesson is to keep your rear brakes up to scratch, they aren't just there for the handbrake. They add a lot to stopping power and brake balance.

The other thing I found with my 3A, when my rear drums locked up with severe braking, was to get the drums skimmed back to true round and remove any taper in the drum. It made a huge difference and stopped locking up and balanced well with the front discs and VH44 power booster. Stops as well as most modern cars.