Bought a spitfire!!!

Mattius

Mattius

Mattius

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Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Edinburgh
just bought a triumph spitfire, oh my god its such a gorgeous car, will post pictures later.
but my first thing i want to do with it is improve the brakes are hopeless, what is the best soloution? i've read most people change the discs for 9.5" . I want a quick and cost effective soloution. my brother suggested a good sports brake pad instead of stock.
 
I thought you might have ment an Old WW2 plane or the engine from one.
Ive been let down :(
 
Mattius said:
I want a quick and cost effective soloution.
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Not a good idea when you're talking about brakes IMO.

The stock ones shouldn't be all that bad unless a) they're in really poor nick or b) you're expecting them to perform exactly like the brakes on a modern car :)
 
Yeah the easiest way would be to use a sports pad that can take more heat. They should be readily available I would have thought because the Spitfire was a popular car. Next up would be to change the discs for something a bit bigger. I expect just like small Fords of the time there is a bigger/newer car that had bigger better brakes that can be easily adapted. As an example I have Capri 10.5" discs on the front of my Anglia and twin pot calipers and that stops that light little car on a penny! I can also adapt Fiesta and Mk1/2 Escort if I need to.

Best thing to do is find a dedicated Triumph forum as they will be able to tell you exactly what to look for. Chances are it will be something like Austin Princess or some other big BL car which shares similar parts.
 
JRS said:
b) you're expecting them to perform exactly like the brakes on a modern car :)
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The originals will be close, just harder work on the pedal and more likely to fade from high speed. Big modern brakes on a featherlight classic = very frightened passengers when you leave your braking until the very last minute :D
 
Mattius said:
the brakes have been serviced, and recently bled and a new master cylinder fitted
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Are they servo'd? It's been a while since I was crawling over a Spitfire, I forget if any of them were fitted with brake servos. :)
 
Great choice of car, I had a blue 1500 Spitfire at one point and it was great fun. Watch out for rotting sills and the back end deciding to go in a different direction from the front end
 
Mattius said:
but is there not some way to improve them
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Depends on your definition of "improve". You could lower the pedal pressure by fitting a remote servo. Or you could learn to press a bit harder like other classic car owners...
 
Something that helps (believe it or not) is to extend the brake pedal a little.

What I mean by that is to lengthen the part that comes from the pivot point down to the foot pad.

You want to have the same braking power with less pedal pressure? Make the fulcrum length on the pedal you're pushing longer!! Greater leverage = more braking power per pound of foot pressure.

The down side is that the actual pedal will be closer to the floor and you'll have to push it farther to do the same work (think about the pedals on a mountain bike in different gears).
 
Or the alternative to what Mickey says which will do exactly the same thing is to use a smaller master cylinder. If it's say a 0.7" go down to a 0.625". It will make the pedal easier to push but the pedal will probably travel too far.

Spounds to me like it's just harder work than you were expecting because you are used to modern over-assisted power brakes. The stopping power is still there, you just have to do all the work yourself with your right foot. A remote servo is the answer which is a bit of power assistance for you. Speedy's Spares keep a lot of N.O.S. remote servos, for some reason Triumph Herald springs to mind, but I know there is a small one you can use off a slightly bigger car that is popular with all the classic car owners.
 
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