Is automatic dangerous?

I assume that St. Christopher had already abandoned ship, in favour of the Bible?

Of course, most first cars in those days were bangers. And maybe not well maintained. Cable brakes can be OK - some racing cars used them. But they do tend to be high maintenance.

Austins were famous for having poor brakes. Herbert Austin (IIRC) was quoted as saying good brakes encouraged poor driving. But more likely because small brakes cost less.

I had a Standard 8. I am sure it had hydraulic brakes.

The badge was used on several cars. The pre-war Flying Eight and immediately post-war 8hp (separate wings), like Doug's, was cable. The '50s 8/10 (integrated wings) was hydraulic. I suspect yours was the latter.

Later ones did. Different everything else too. ;-)

My A35 Van had an arrangement where one hydraulic cylinder worked both the rear drums by a rod arrangement. By the time I got it although it had only done about 30,000 mile most of them were on dung covered roads including a farm track about 1/4 mile long. The mechanical linkages were well worn and corroded so they never really worked that well.

G.Harman

Mk 1 A40 Farinas had an identical arrangement. The handbrake operated the same mechanical linkage; I never saw how it met Construction and Use regs.

With my Dad's A40, I dismantled all the linkages, cleaned them, covered them with Linklyfe (motorcycle chain lubricant), and made a waterproof cover for the bell-crank equaliser on the rear axle out of a piece of inner tube. The brakes were still working as well as they ever did some years later.

Chris

It's an interesting one - what is an 'independant' hand brake? After all in those days most shared the rear shoes. If you had a leak from the hydraulics which affected the brake shoes, it would also affect the handbrake performance. The Austin 7 had a handbrake which worked on the same 'pivot' as the brake pedal.

Modern autos don't need the brake pedal held on to stay still.

The regs at the time said something like 'independently actuated'. I don't believe the arrangement where the whole of the mechanical part of the system was shared met that requirement.

When Ford were competing in World Rally with the mark 2 Escort, they used a hydraulic handbrake. When it came to the RAC, the cars all failed scrutineering as not being in compliance with UK C & U rules. There was a frantic dash around all the motorcycle dealers to round up any cable- operated callipers to work in tandem with the hydraulics.

All pretty pointless, as the jury-rigged callipers hung down, and were wiped out on the first stage...

Chris

the problem was the shared hydraulic pipe, lose that and all rear end braking was gone.

Yep, although I doubt that a cable-operated handbrake would have contributed much to stopping a rally-prepared RS1600 on full chat!

Chris

Surely never intended to stop the car, just to lock up the rear wheels.

Tim

Both; but legally to help stop the car when the hydraulics has failed.

Chris

Don't see why not if properly engineered. But it's much easier to do with hydraulics.

My Rover P6 with rear discs where the handbrake was part of the caliper (Girling swing type) you got exactly the same reading on the rear wheels at MOT time with both handbrake and footbrake - if everything was in good nick. Probably the best handbrake I've had.

Most modern cars have dual circuit brakes so the failure of one circuit doesn't cause them all to fail. Would be trivially easy to do the same with a handbrake. The snag being if it slowly leaks down. A problem with a parking brake, but not an emergency one, or one needed for rallying.

Rally cars also need to comply with the road laws in the country the competition is taking place in.

The problem with the rally Escorts was that the mechanical handbrake was removed, and the handbrake used to operate a master cylinder that put pressure into the existing (drum) rear brake hydraulics. The front brake circuit was independent of the rear. Hydraulic failure of one circuit would have left the other operating, but C & U regs at that time required there to be two independent braking systems, at least one of which had to be mechanical.

Chris

Yes- I sort of remember the fuss.

A stupid non-technical reply of the kind (I'm better that thou...). And you dun see intil it one day happes to you... I remember there were some cases in the US with Audi 5000 (Audi 100) in mercania, but cars should be safe for the lowest common denomitator; thats the real issue. I am very diligent, and check everything before putting it into D/R.