Front Brakes
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John Bourke
 A side view of the front brakes showing the custom made
"0.95" thick ventilated front brake discs on anodised alloy bells. These
weigh about the same as the standard 1/2" thick V8 discs. The backplates
are retained albeit modified with holes to to duct air to the centre of the
disc and annular shielding to to protect the bearing seal track - which in
my experience can suffer when exposed on a road car. (See below) The front
brake calipers are SD1 4 pot police spec (single line - I think that some
Sherpa vans are similar). The point in using these calipers over the popular
Princess calipers (same as RV8) is that the pistons are 1 5/8" dia rather
than 1 1/2" dia. If you calculate 2x 1 1/2" dia and compare that to the area
of 2.125" (std MGB/V8) you will find little difference in the area. All calipers
after 1976 are metric which means that the mounting holes are 12mm dia but
on the same centres (2.25"). I sleeved the caliper lugs with steel bushes
back to 7/16" and used NAS spec bolts with a grip length to put the thread
run out below the shear plane on ground washers Loctited and safety wired.
The extra width of the calipers means that extra care has to be taken when
mounting the brake flexi hose - I used Earl's Dash 3 banjo fittings on the
caliper - I had to turn down a long banjo bolt to get exactly the right length
- standard type fittings would get ripped off on full lock.
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 Backplates modified with holes to to duct air to the centre
of the disc and annular shielding to to protect the bearing seal track
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Robert Pulleyblank
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Fitting a V8 engine into an MGB
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