The brakes could not stand up to salted winter roads (salting was a practice just starting at the time). The Crosley discs just corroded and locked up as soon as the salt hit them, so they were quickly discontinued.
You might want to look up the book "The Metropolitan Story" if you are really interested, as it goes into minute detail about how the car was developed. The front suspension was unique to the Met and was Nash-style with the springs high up on the upper control arms. I don't know if the floorpan (it's a unibody car, so no "chassis" in the sense of a separate frame) is shared with any Austin models of the day. The initial prototypes were made using Fiat running gear.
Engine and drivetrain of production models were 100% Austin, though interestingly the 4-speed gearbox was converted to 3-speed by locking out first gear. (Nash did extensive consumer research and drivers at that time were accustomed to 3-speed tranny with column shift.)
It may seem surprising but not everyone considered them superior to drum. I recall an article back in the 60's in Popular Mechanics/Science. Smokey Yunich (probably misspelled) was one of there regular writers and had been, and perhaps still was at the time, a well known stock car racer. He believed drums were superior and wrote about it in a "debate" in the magazine with someone else who argued that disks were superior. There is something to be said for drum brakes, you'll notice they are still in widespread use on 18 wheelers.
Well, Chrysler A-bodies (Dart/Valiant/Duster/Demon) stuck with 4-piston disks through 72, changing to Kelsey-Hayes floating calipers for 73.
Roger Blake wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@moog.netaxs.com:
Your implication is that the unibody may be unique to the Met. I'm sure you're right, but...
Taking your advice, I did some Internet searching and came up with a bunch of Met sites. As an aggregate, they indicate that the engine, transmission, brakes, steering, rear axle, and at least some of the suspension were straight carry-overs from the A30 and the A40.
Given the Met's low selling price, small volume, and high parts-bin content, I just find it kind of hard to believe Nash or BMC would have tooled up an entire new unibody when they already had the A30's to work with. Having seen both up close (while lacking a measuring tape at the time), I'd swear the Met and the A30/A35 are the exact same wheelbase and track width.
There is one area where drums are "better" - weight. on my 76 Camaro, the front disks are the heavy parts, and all that mass needs to be rotated. The rear drums are lighter than the rotors, and the total mass of the disk assembly is definitely greater than the total mass of the drum assembly.
That said, I'll take the weight penalty with disks 11 times out of 10 on any car that I'm working on. I hate drums.
I had a web page showing the weights, and it was around 40 pounds advantage for 4 wheel drums, but I've since lost the link, so don't quote me on that.
Ray
Actually I'm not so sure, not being familiar with the British cars that the running gear was lifted from. It is common knowledge amongst old car buffs where the engine etc. came from, but I've never seen anything indicating that the unibody platform came from an existing vehicle. It would be interesting to compare the Met with an A30 or A40 close up, particularly underneath to check the chassis design.
I'm not sure that the weight thing is really that significant. If nothing else, the rotational inertia of a drum is likely greater than a disc of equal diameter, even if the total weight is the same or less. So you might win some on unsprung weight, but lose on rotational inertia.
nate
I havent done any calculations, but intuitively it would seem that rotational inertia would not be greatly different, and wouldnt be too big a deal anyway. Have you put a pencil to it, Nate?
MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.