A little while ago I wrote about drum brakes and it reminded me of the Le Mans winning Jaguars of the 1950s. One of the advantages the Jags had over their American, German and Italian rivals was their use of disc brakes. The other cars mostly still used drum brakes that were inferior in their ability to slow a car down. Thus the Jags could brake much later than the other cars … [Read more...]
Drum Brakes
Drum brakes were the first type of speed reduction on an automobile (apart from engine braking). The design came from the clasp brake that railway locomotives used - the difference being that a clasp brake applies pressure on the outside of the wheel and the drum brake applies it on the inside of the mechanism. It is a very simple design and concept, to reduce speed, the brake … [Read more...]
