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From: Stuart Ulph
Date: 03 Jan 2003
Time: 07:02:51
Remote Name: 193.237.136.145
The brakes on my friend Andrew's Type 65 (Bowdenex)suffer horribly from cable drag and are a pig to set up to get reasonable results. The brakes on my special (Bowdenex and, I suspect, the originals fitted by Williams circa 1937) are a delight - light and effective with very little drag. How can this be? I recall my Dad working on the Bowdenex on the special when he first acquired it in the late 60s. With the cable units off the car, one could hardly move the cables in the outers, so great was the drag produced almost entirely by the old heavy grease pumped into the cables by misguided former owners. Loth to dismantle the cables (both end fittings being brazed(?) on, I still have a mental image of my father hanging the cables on the washing line and playing a blowtorch over the outers. A great deal of grot dripped from the lower extremities (of the cables, that is) and their freedom was massively increased. As Barry observes,surely modern materials would be even better. I think the people to have a word with would be Speedy Cables, in London I believe. Sorry I don't have an exact address for them, but they are well known in the competition world and shouldn't be too hard to find. While we are on the subject, my reservation about Bowdenex is that by rendering the front brakes more effective they permit even greater twisting of the front axle than usual, without the mitigating inefffectiveness of the standard brake layout. Surely best of all would be Jack French's solution of a solid kingpin extended upwards with a stay from its upper end back to the radius arm, vide Simplicity. Then the standard brake activation would work quite well. Hope this helps you make a decision! Regards, Stuart