Beck TD, Part 33 - Disc Brakes!

Big news - after a year of discussion, planning, gathering parts, rebuilding parts, fabricating parts and installation, Beck TD has front disc brakes!

I literally knew of this upgrade from the day that I bought Beck because the developers of the upgrade, Charlie Baldwin and Cor Engelen, helped me retrieve Beck from Virginia. On that long drive, they described an upgrade using MGB parts, along with a hub adapter that Charlie designed and Cor brought to reality on his metalworking lathe. The purpose of that adapter is to marry the 4-lug MGB hub to the 5-lug TD wheels. Here's Charlie's blueprint for the hub adapter:

Cor subsequently determined that there is enough variation in stock MGB hubs that the plates should be made to fit a specific set of hubs. Thus, before the project can begin, a good-quality MGB front end should be procured. That took months in my case, and the process was detailed in Part 23. After that, Troy Nace helped me clean, sandblast and paint all those MGB parts:

Not shown in that picture are the MGB hubs, which had already gone to Cor. He later got the spindles and brake backing plates, and then he could fit everything together, rebuilding components where needed. Once that was done, we scheduled a day, and Troy and I disassembled Beck's front suspension and installed the MGB lower control arms and spring plate. The reason those were needed was to be able to add the MGB anti-sway bar as well as the brakes.

Cor arrived on the appointed day, and Troy joined us for the morning as well. Cor brought out the assembled spindles with the hubs and adapters attached, and it was a work of art! Here are three views that show details on how things are married together:

Of course, that's a brand new brake disc there, and I bought rebuild calipers and new brake pads as well. Once the spindles were mounted on the car (a slightly scary procedure due to the need to compress the spring), we installed the brake hardware. In Part 28, I detailed making adapters to marry the 3/8-20 BSF threads on the TD brake hoses to the 3/8-24 UNF threads in the MGB calipers. I was waiting for that "exotic" BSF tap from Cor to finish the process, and he brought it. I tapped the adapters, and was pleased that they worked perfectly with no leaks. The adapter is circled below:

The final process was to modify the steering to adapt to the new MGB parts. That involved shortening and re-tapping the tie rod ends, which I handled, while Cor used an abrasive cutting disc to shorten the tie rods. This was done carefully and in stages, until we had them exactly right to give the appropriate adjustment range. Here's Cor doing the grinding:

Once that was done, we used long straightedges and a tape measure to align the front toe-in. I've used this process before, and it's easy to get it within a half degree or so. I'll take it back to Lancaster Mitsubishi for one more alignment to make it perfect. Here's the finished suspension (all but the anti-sway bar) on the ground.

And here Beck is, ready for its first test drive. And what a successful drive! This modification transformed the braking, both in normal driving and in full-braking tests. Many, many thanks to Cor and to Troy for helping me improve Beck's safety!

Continue on to Part 34...