Uncoupled brakes conversion?

[Steve kay]

The bordello brake conversion? Oooh matron!

[Ian Williams]

I have something very similar to the Bordello conversion which was made to attach the front brake cables to an uncoupled cross shaft. I have no idea who the manufacturer was as I have never seen another the same.

[Tony Press]

I have removed two Bodelo type conversions- reverting to the original handbrake front brake system.

With the 'flexible' brake cross shaft the central lever was not very good at operating the brake levers.

[`Gordonhbm]

Tony,
Re your comment on  ineffectiveness due to "flexibility" of shaft.  Was the problem due to bending of the cross shaft or due to movement associated with the fixings the cross shaft to the chase side members?

[Tony Press]

I think the shaft assembly is not rigid enough to give a strong pull to the front brakes even with added support to the shaft hangers and is very difficult to set up with the original rear cables.

[Ruairidh Dunford]

Don’t still need photos of the set up on export cars, Oliver, or are you sorted?

[`Gordonhbm]

Tony,
Thanks for  your  reply.  I can understand your comment on setting up and the need for a rigid shaft assembly.  I had a Talbot 14/45 and if you set up the rear brakes too tight this limited the movement necessary to get the  front brakes to operate.  You had to get rid of all wear in the system and then set up all the linkages and clearances precisely in a set order and then the brakes were superb.  Ideally what was needed was proper side to side compensation on each axle and compensation between front and rear.
On the Austin 7 I can see that there have been developed a number viable solutions developed for the side to side compensation but there seems no easy solution to the compensation problem between front and rear and hence the preference for reverting to the uncoupled state.

[Lowespeed]

Tony Betts can supply a new solid brake cross shaft which might help with the bending problem.

[David Cochrane]

If you lie under the car and look at the cross-shaft while someone is pressing the brake pedal, you will see that it's the brackets that are flexing and causing the problem rather than the shaft itself.

[Howard Wright]

Hi All

I think there is flex in the whole system. Pure torsion in the cross shaft is, perhaps, the biggest and invisible distortion. Whilst a solid shaft will increase torsional rigidity is by less than you would think as torsion is resisted most in the extremities of the shaft diameter. To improve things Austin introduced the longitudinal chassis member with an additional bearing close-ish to the centre of the shaft. I understand these were available as a retro fit for dealers to instal when fitting coupled brake conversions (page 264 of The Source Book).

Cheers

Howard