Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Gary, do you remember that happeneing to Wayne Winfield at the old Houston International track? He was in his Hemi Cuda, the car was stopped by a tree athe end of the track. The track didn't even know he had wrecked and as he was walking back the safety people stopped him and told him he could not enter the track from down at the end. He just pointed towards his car and asked them why they wre still running when there was a wrecked car at the end of the track. This must have been around 83. I think you guys still had that Toyota station wagon,lol.

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

First of all, I am glad to hear that you and your vehicle seem to be OK. I have a question about emergency brakes that come stock in all cars? Did you put on racing rear brakes or are they stock ones from the factory and do they work? I will bet the NHRA safety will make it manditory that the emergency brakes from the factory work in Stock and SS cars in the near future and if they don't SHAME on them. It's not right for the racers to jeoperdize their race cars and maybe their lives to safe some weight. I'm not being a smart ***, but the old drum brakes in working order are better then nothing.
Casey Miles
248H E/S ("f" the 4 HP)

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Casey, have you ever applied an emergency brake on a vehicle at speed? When me and my pals were young we used to do it for "fun", well I can tell you what happens but maybe you should try it and see for yourself. The problem is not with the actual braking system it's with the M/Cyl. pushrod install, I've seen it many times and I'm sure I'll see it many more. There has to be some thought involved with this as just hooking up a rod without a rear stop to prevent the rod from falling out is just looking for trouble. I'd suggest now that this topic is "hot" everyone PLEASE take an evening and crawl up under the dash and really look at what they have, most may be suprised at what they find. Joe

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Gary, thanks for giving us the heads up. I had a brake issue with my super street car at Ennis Sat. night also, yet a little different. The bolts that hold the rotor to the hat on the right rear backed out and just about machined the caliber bracket in half. It was vibrating pretty bad in the shut down area and sounded like someone was under my car with a grinder. All of the bolts on both rotors were loose. They had all been lock tighted in with star washer but not safety wired. Now I know why those safety wire holes were in those bolts. I failed to realize that red lock tight will loosen up with heat. Please check your brakes guys and gals. These near miss accidents are what help others from serious accidents. Thanks for posting your experience Gary.

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Gary glad everything was ok!!! The way we fixed our mustangs was drill out the brake pedal rod and use a bolt and lock nut grade 8- 7/16. Then we built a positive stop to keep the brake pedal rod from coming out of the master cylinder. Hope this will help out some. Once again glad everybody was ok!!!

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

To add more on my post we used the aerospace adjustable brake rod. Thanks Steven Hall 4782 CSA

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Darrin,
I had a caliper bolt back out one time also. I always torque the caliper bolts and loctite periodically. Brakes are probably the most important thing on our racing equipment, but they do get over looked sometimes.

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

We had a rotor hat bolt back out last year and about chew the caliper bracket in half! Wilwood sent a new one and said it was fairly common. Shouldn't ever happen if you ask me. Just follow ALL directions during assembly and most of these things are avoidable. We didn't use the wire through the bolts either, thinking we would just check them periodically...didn't work.

PS: The way we discovered this was during staging, dad couldn't get the car to "creep" forward consistantly. Sometimes it would take a little throttle and the car would lurch forward, staging too deep. The bolt would hang up on the rear caliper bracket, causing an inconsistant drag. He was very fortunate something bad didn't happen.

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Mike, that is exactly the same thing that happened to me in Ennis. I was stagging the car in the second round and it would not roll forward into the beams until i gave it a little throttle, then it would roll and stop again. I thought for sure it was rock from that gravel we were pitted in that got hung up it the caliper, so I went ahead and stagged it anyway. It almost machined the bracket in half and slowed the car down .07. Yeah Cooter it's just one of those things that got overlooked. They will be wired soon!

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

A few years back at the Ennis Divisional our Station Wagon's master cylinder for some reason went out just at the finish line. Talk about scary, I can only imagine that happening in a faster stocker. Never the less we went ahead and got us a nicer one than an O'reilly rebuilt. Glad to hear everything turned out alright.