the original mechanical brakes

Squared. If they were so awful, how do we explain the survival of so many cars equipped with them?
 
On my daughter's 11th birthday (twenty years ago) some of the boys at the party asked if I could give them a ride in my 32 sedan, all original, yes with original mechanical brakes. My wife suggested that I drive them to the bowling alley where the party was being held. Yup, no problem. Big mistake!!! I took the wrong route, ended up on a long steep downhill with a pick up on my back. As much as I tried to slow down, standing on the brake pedal, they were toast, downshift to 2nd, popped out, did it again popped out. At the bottom of the hill is a traffic light and a four lane highway. Started to look for a place to ditch it with the least amount of harm. Just before the traffic light the road flattens out and I was able to pull into a service station parking lot. Kids had a great time. I spent weeks going thru the brakes. Replaced the shoes and cut the drums. Moral of the story, make sure your brakes are well maintained and stay off steep roads.
 
Irrelevant story. Juice brakes or mechanical, its up to the operator/owner to know that every thing is working properly
 
old and new just dont mix if you use the correct lining and set them up correctly the will work as they where supposed to and are more than up to the job change the lining type and trouble starts its just to hard and wont grip the drums as its suppose to and just polishes the drums so if you change one thing you must balance it out
 
When Ford went to bonded linings in mid '37, they never went back to woven. No reason to go back now.
 
Ihave a '37 fordor still with mech. brakes woven linnings redone 2 and 1/2 yrs ago. ever since iv'e had the '37 i drive it allmost every day. iv'e been adjusting at the wheels a few times during my ownership. iv'e been looking for new shoes or even just the linning and rivit kits and seems as though out of stock everywhere. any ideas? thanks, Tom.
 
Has anybody here tried using a power brake unit on early Ford cars with brake shoes, like this one?
sum-760214_ml.jpg
 
I've rebuilt the mech brakes on my '34 Fordor with woven linings and new bushings, NOS parts etc. Not yet running but have confidence they'll stop. My brother has a very original 5W with mechanicals, not yet rebuilt but work very well on his car.

Paul J
 
I went through the mechanical brakes on my 32 Cabriolet - parts were NOT worn out as the car only have 5,000 miles on it. I put new woven brake linings in it as well. They were perfectly fine - up to about 55 miles per hour. They did exactly what they were intended to do. I drove the car like this for 2 years - until I put the big stroker motor in and rebuilt the whole undercarriage (new late 32 rear, 3.54 gears, etc).

At higher speeds or on longer down-hill grades, they are not up to the task. While the woven brake linings are good for slower speeds, they do fade at higher speeds and more continuous braking. These are part of why I switched over to energized Lincoln style hydraulic brakes - as I wanted a better braking system for how I drove the car (which was different than Henry intended).
 
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