Experience with parking brake on front ears of rear axel carrier?

My question would be what are you proposing to use for a parking brake? Most of the kart spot caliper offerings are still woefully inadequate, especially when needed for rolling road resistance hold on a European vehicle test.

If I was still in Europe I'd go for Hi-Spec calipers, proven design for UK IVA and MoT test. http://www.hispeccalipers.co.uk/rear.html

I know of at lest one car that had addition of a second set of stock calipers, but not sure how one would bleed them. Perhaps they can be switched side to side to keep the bleeds at the top if all the handbrake mechanism is removed?

Julian

Thanks for the heads-up on the High spec calipers, but I was intending to use the Sacc Restorations kit. It is advertised as being much stronger than than the stock parking brake, and it has also been thoroughly worked out by Scott with the proper spacers/brackets and proven to fit inside the wheels and clear everything on our cars (for a rear setup). So for me that is the most cost and time effective solution.

Cheers, Tim.

I installed Scott's kit 4 piston Willwood and extra Willwood parking brake on stock rear disks and use vented disks and stock calipers/Gierling in the front.

- the 4 pistons Willwood's are on the forward ear, they are a good fit on 10" 15" Campies
- Park brake on the rear ear. The park brake is a swimming caliper I guess originally designed for motorcycle use (?). The adapter is steel, a bit to far out to accomodate the typically glued weights for the 15" rim. So had some issues. Best would be to rework the adapters by may be 2 mm closer to the disks (would require some welding and redrill (which I did not do). I needed to change to the very thin glued weights 2.5 grams (vs the typical 5 gram) each. Needed quite some for the 305 tires but it worked/s doing 75 grams!!.
- NO Prop valve

This is a top set up. Braking is adeqate for a 400 HP car. The Willwood park brake was just tested on the "rolling" test bench, with decent results. I got the very STRONG GERMAN TÜV/Mot approved, they also got me the brake change in the car paper work!!! So all offcial now.

Sorry I am expanding here a bit but tried to get the real set up I have by evidence.

Matthias

I am in the process of installing a Tesla electric park brake kit on 6997.

The stock rear brakes are swapped side by side and go on the front ears. This keeps the bleed valve up. Longer brake lines are installed to suit. The tesla units have the drive motors rotated 180 degrees to clear the cable connection to the drive shaft. Pantera Electronics sells a simple adaptor plate for the rear mounts or you can make a set. They also sell the control box with a couple of switching options. PE dont sell the Tesla units - you will have to trawl around ebay to find a set - should cost $120-160. Made by Brembo and designed to resist high torque starts. While they have not operated in anger yet they look the business and just have to be better than the very dubious original cable hand brakes. 

Well  worth considering as an option. And you can use a push button switch, lose the hand brake assembly and free up some room inside. 

Main brakes are still stock. And no need to cut the cable mount bracket  - it will clear the shock so its fully reversible. 

Percy,

Interesting setup. How heavy is the Tesla unit?

wooow Tesla on a Pantera ..I need a beer..

never mind! Enjoy braking....

Matthias

I don’t have an exact weight but the Tesla calipers are quite light. Also, at some point, Brembo started making the calipers from composite, which is even lighter than the earlier aluminum versions. Keep in mind, these calipers were designed to be used on a 4,900 lb sedan, so they are overkill on a Pantera. Wilwood is also making electric PB calipers but unfortunately, they are not any more compact than the Tesla/Brembo units. 

Can you still do handbrake turns with the Tesla units? 

@timsteren posted:

I am wondering if anyone has experience with mounting a parking brake kit on the front 'ears' of the rear axel carrier.

Tim, yes... no problem but you may need longer cables. The PB calipers in the photo are made by Stop Tech.

If I were doing it all over and wanted to use cable actuated PB calipers, I'd probably use Hi-Spec calipers, as Julian suggested. Also, I've always thought Dodge SRT10 Viper (Brembo) PB calipers would work well on the Pantera. These are the same PB calipers that Ferrari and Lamborghini use but at a fraction of the price. What I like about that caliper is the cable pulls perpendicular to the caliper (like the Pantera's OEM PB caliper), which allows for better cable routing. 

Many thanks to all for your responses, I appreciate it, and it has been very useful, I am glad I asked the forum. Matthias, great info on passing the German MOT, well done. I live in Sweden, so it is very interesting to hear that you got them approved in Germany.

Cheers, Tim.

Husker

I have the aluminium not composite Brembo units and I estimate they are around 600-800 gm each. Not heavy at all. 

David

Those two part hubs and rotors are outstanding - where did you get them ? In fact the entire setup looks astonishing. Are the lower wishbones stock - hard to see? 

I am manning up to strip the entire back suspension back out for a full bearing , bush , lower shaft replacement exercise . On top of that I am going to replace all the wheel studs as the only time you can do it on the one piece hub is when the axle is pulled and in pieces. It looks like you could just take the top hub assembly off yours and pretty well do whatever you like . 

Is the offset on the wheel the same as the OEM ? 

Thanks for sharing the photo.

Percy

@Percy posted:

 

David

Those two part hubs and rotors are outstanding - where did you get them ? In fact the entire setup looks astonishing. Are the lower wishbones stock - hard to see? 

I am manning up to strip the entire back suspension back out for a full bearing , bush , lower shaft replacement exercise . On top of that I am going to replace all the wheel studs as the only time you can do it on the one piece hub is when the axle is pulled and in pieces. It looks like you could just take the top hub assembly off yours and pretty well do whatever you like . 

Is the offset on the wheel the same as the OEM ? 

Thanks for sharing the photo.

Percy

 

Percy, my rear rotors are 12.19" x 1.25" Wilwood's. The hats are custom machined but the specs are the same as the Wilwood Pantera "competition" hats. The wheel studs are 1/2"-20 screw-in studs. The hats are 1/4" thick, so they decrease the effective wheel offset by the same amount.

The rear lower control arms are stock but modified to mount to the chassis with Teflon lined rod ends rather than rubber bushings. The upper control arms are not OEM but also mount to the chassis with rod ends. I could never understand how DeTomaso expected rear toe to be adjusted by only moving (shimming) the lower control arm, so when I set rear toe-in, I adjust the upper and lower control arms by the same amount.