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Mechanical Drum vs. Hydraulic

20K views 57 replies 24 participants last post by  kickstarts 
#1 ·
I know neither is as good as a disc. That said, here’s my situation.

I am collecting parts for a period correct ’55 Panhead project, in a ’48 wishbone. I have found both a mechanical drum(would still need to find the plate, shoes, etc.) and a complete hydraulic rear brake. This bike was run before with a juice drum, so the cross shaft for the mechanical has been cut off. I have another tube and shaft I can put on there. Will not have a front brake. I know the mechanical will look a lot cleaner, so I’m leaning that way, but how much better will the hydraulic stop? This bike will be mostly for show and cruising around, no high speed blasts on the freeway or lane-splitting in heavy traffic.
 
#43 ·
The shortcoming of using the rigid frame's anchor tab between the legs rather than welding a tab on the bottom is that it makes the brakes more difficult to bleed. To get all the air out, you'd have to bleed the wheel off the bike , with the wheel cylinder at the 12:00 position, and then install it without breaking any of the line connections.
 
#45 ·
Thank you for all this. (Notcool I was looking at your set up in the GKM feature, there a good pic of it...)
I guess my juice brake bein' a later model and the anchor tab between the legs of my frame bein' already cut off, I should rather weld a tab on the bottom... for some reason I find myself bleeding my brakes often...
I was just after the cleaner minimalist look of the tab between the legs.
and Richard D, sorry for hijacking your thread...
 
#49 ·
I guess the point I was trying to make is that there probably isn't a LARGE chance of catastrophic failure (on either system) without warning (fluid leaks or hose bulge on hydraulic, rattles or ?? on mechanical). And I can honestly say that I don't remember a fluid blowout on any bike with hydraulic brakes I've ridden since 1975 (mechanical brakes before that and no problem with them either).

If Richard's bike were mine, I'd probably go with hydraulics because it is set up for hydraulics right now (maintain the history of the way the bike was built in the 60s/70s?) and he has the hydraulic brake setup for it. And they work.

But I might set it up for mechanical brakes if I like the looks better (cleaner?), or I was thinking about restoring the frame at some time. And they work.
Larry T
 
#52 ·
I'm a two brake kind of guy myself. I've never run a spool hub in 40+ years of riding and I don't see a reason for me to start now.

Well, I see the bottom of my coffee cup (slow start today). Guess I'll go do a little work. I need to adjust the brakes on a customers 49 Pan. Kinda ironic, isn't it? :D
Larry T
 

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#54 ·
Danny,
No, it's a customers 1954. He brought it in for a tune-up and it's turned into a major headache (mostly the 3 side draft carbs). I've been getting a lot of stuff to work on that folks have bought with the idea that they are in good shape, when in reality they're good enough to crank and run across the auction block and not much more. Then they bring them to me to get them in good enough shape to actually drive.

The Panhead is the same kind of deal, but I'm kinda enjoying getting it road ready.

I've got a numbers matching 425 horse 409 63 Impala in here that I'm rebuilding the engine for another guy. It's a pretty nice deal too.

Trouble is, I'm busy enough with customer work, that I'm not getting much done to my stuff.
Larry T
 
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