Brake Balance

I have a Series 3 SWB with 10" single leading shoe drums all round. I've fitted a servo with a dual line master cylinder and I'm happy with the power but feel that I could do with the balance shifted a bit towards the front as the rears lock up first.

I have a set of LWB TLS brakes that could go on the front but I feel that this may be overkill and would also require a larger bore master cylinder and moving the front slaves to the rear.

So, my question is, can I use LWB SLS rear brakes on the front of the SWB to move the balance towards the front?

Before you do anything else as the brakes are generally working well,try backing the rear adjusters off a couple of clicks.This often sorts this problem.

Thanks for the tip, but would that work, I assumed that the pressure in the system would equalise, so while that would encourage the fronts to bite first the imbalance would still be there. I will try this weekend and see if it has a positive effect.

How have you got the split connected up ?

The brakes are split front to back, I'm using a small bore dual line master cylinder, I think this master cylinder was fitted to lightweights with 10" drums and a servo, the front port is plumbed to the front brakes.

have you tried changing the 2 brake pipes that come out of master round on my old 2a the front brakes are fed by the front port and the back brakes are fed from the back port from the safety angel do you have a brake failure valve fitted between front and rear brake lines so if one line leaks the valve will cut off that line and maintain pressure in other line

No brake failure valve fitted and mine is plumbed the same as yours. I cant see that it would make much difference which way its plumbed, as far as I know the bore of the master cylinder is a fixed diameter. I've never stripped a dual line cylinder down but I assume that in normal operation the pressure produced by the first piston in the cylinder is the hydraulic force that drives the second piston so the outlet pressure in both lines should be the same.

outlet pressure will be the same if the bores are the same size!

.hi have you tried bleading brakes starting at back first.also have you given brakes time to bed in you could try swapping drums and shoes front to back matter of interest I have series2 with 11 inch drums on front master cylinder bore is22.2mm with servo assist this set up goes through mot fine,point of interest first piston abbouts second piston when you press brakes.has your land rover got a brake failure valve as this can make them harder to bleed do front brakes pull up level are flexi pipes all ok I don't think size of cylinder would effect balance as pistons are both the same size according to records there are o0nly 2 sizes of master cylinder bores22.2mm 38mm sorey and19mm let us know how you get on reguards to your first question you can put 11drums on front iwou use 22.2 mill master cylinder this works fine for me is it worth trying rolling road test as it takes more pressure to lock front brakes than back ones ?was land rover empty when tried brakes

I dont think its air in the system, in fact the whole system bled remarkably easily. Its always a little difficult to tell if the 10" setup has air in it as a quick double stab on the pedal always firms them up a bit, I'm sure its the way the trailing shoe is only lightly sprung with the bottom return spring, also the balance seems to stay the same. The brakes have a couple of thousand miles on them since complete rebuild so should well bedded in. I will try backing off the rear adjusters at the weekend and also look into sourcing some LWB rear brakes.

my series land rover has 11inch drums on front with 2 wheel cylinders per side.

I'm not that keen on the 11" TLS front brakes, I fear that this will tip the balance too far forward, I know I could fit the larger slaves to the rear but if a set of 11" SLS rear brakes will fit then I hope to get the balance I want without unnecessary complication.

Thought I should report back about my brake balance issue. I fitted a set of 11" LWB rear drums and backplates to the front of my SWB series 3 today. I found that by fitting the near side rear to the off side front and of course the off side rear to the near side front the existing ridged pipe work could be encouraged to fit. Fitting was fairly straight forward and bleeding was very easy.

First drive out this evening and I think I have achieved my aims, I get a lot more braking effort going into the front brakes with much more noticeable front end dive and the fronts now lock up first. There is also a noticeable increase in overall braking and a lighter pedal.

As the new fronts bed there is a possibility that the bias be a bit too much but I could always put the front slaves I removed into the rear.

I seem to recall that the servo master cylinder applies the front brakes first then the rear but that means plumbing the rear brakes to the front most port...

How fast are you thinking of going in ye tratter. Im not sure its worth it unless you drive like a migrant.

Mine is plumbed front port to front brakes, I think on the LWB TLS setup you plumb rear port to front brakes, still cant see how it could possibly know how to apply the front brakes first, its a simple hydraulically linked pair of pistons,

are the pistons the same diameter?

I think that both the LWB tandem master cylinder and the smaller diameter one I have have used in my application have a single bore size.

Hi Chaps I don't think your grasping WHY your front drums ain't locking up & your rears are !
IT'S called a bl**dy lump of a motor at the front & a little TOW brkt at the back !

Citizen Kane said:

Mine is plumbed front port to front brakes, I think on the LWB TLS setup you plumb rear port to front brakes, still cant see how it could possibly know how to apply the front brakes first, its a simple hydraulically linked pair of pistons,

Click to expand...

There's some sort of arrangement with two separate pistons and a spring so that the front brakes come on first...or so I was told.