Steering, Suspension, & Brakes

While trying to get my brakes to work, I found out my front brake calipers (Wilwood) are actually rear brake calipers. The rotor I knew was for a Honda Accord. So, I ordered new “front” Calipers for a 74 MGB. Of course they wont work with the Honda rotors. The Honda rotors are 1” thick and are vented. The wheel hubs fit perfectly on the spindles but are way thicker than the stock MGB hubs. I can see where the builder was going for heavy duty but what are these hubs from? The hubs and matching Honda rotors are twice the mass as a stock MGB set. If anyone here can identify these hubs, I’d be very appreciative Looking online at Honda Wheel hubs, I don’t see anything that looks like these hubs. But I did find matching Honda Rotors? At this point I’m going with Wilwood slotted and X drilled MGB rotors and Wilwood “front” calipers designed for MGBs. The left hand hub is what was on the car, the right is stock MGB 62-80.

Probably Evan Amaya's company Rebornco?.

[www.britishv8.org]

[www.britishv8.org]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2021 07:08PM by mgb260.

FYI: Evan closed down his business & moved from Shelby, NC to South Carolina years ago.

Thanks guys! I knew someone here would know. The weird thing is the brakes were just supposedly serviced by the guy I purchased it from; I have the receipts. But they were awful. No matter how hard you pressed the brakes, no lock up or even a hint of nose dive. After replacing the back hardware, shoes, drums, wheel cylinders and bleeding the crap out of em, no change. That’s when I called Wilwood and discovered the front calipers were for the rear of … I guess a Honda Accord. So, now I’m replacing everything on the front with Wilwood parts proven to work on MGBs, I hope!! The master cylinder is MGB and looks newish, but if my problem isn’t solved after this, I guess I’m shopping for a new Master cylinder.
Thanks again!

A random thought but is the servo working?

The rears... are useful when going backwards... I remember the Bendix cable brakes on my 1935 Standard, twin leading shoe front and rear... great brakes when going forwards... but backwards, oh dear.

The fronts do 80% of the work so they need to be right.

If you compare the piston size on your calipers with the piston size on a stock MGB or the new Wilwoods you ordered, you may find the pistons on those .. rear... calipers are smaller.
This makes a big difference to the leverage between the master and the slaves.
The cross-section of the master vs the cross-section of the slaves gives the leverage.

One can't just change brake components without thinking about the leverage.
If it's wrong then no amount of tinkering will make it work.

Ivor

As soon as I realized the calipers were for the rear, I knew that was a problem. Hopefully its the only problem. And yes the pistons are larger on the new calipers!

Quote:

As soon as I realized the calipers were for the rear, I knew that was a problem. Hopefully its the only problem. And yes the pistons are larger on the new calipers!

I never drive Evan's car, but for what it's worth, I did ride with him on the Tail of the Dragon. His braking worked perfectly fine in some pretty spirited driving. So, assuming he was using his own brake kit, I'd be looking for other issues first before swapping parts. Crushed brake line somewhere? Servo working properly? Rubber/flex brake lines not deteriorated? Etc.

These are manual brakes, no servo. The calipers could have been changed after the initial install, so no blame can be directed at Evan or his product. I’m keeping all that equip for future use option. It’s super heavy duty!

Scott, the 74.5 had a servo and 7/8" master stock. My 73 has manual brakes with a 3/4' master. I think your problem was you had too big of a master with the smaller calipers. You will probably be just right with the larger Wilwood calipers.

Reborn Co Big Brake Kit is a product that came from Evan building his car. Something is wrong somewhere. No way would his kit not be an improvement over stock.

FYI: Evan Amaya is a Mechanical Engineer with many years of auto restoration experience. He taught Mechanical Engineering at Piedmont Technical College for 7 years.