NP205 Brake kit vs. Caddy Calipers

[BigCountryx]

I like the mechanical factor of the HAD set up. You sont ever have to worry about leaks or hoses etc. I dont have mine on yet (its only been 3 years ) but I am getting there.

If you scroll to the bottom of the page on that Go-Kart site, there is a mechanical caliper there also.

 

[Triaged]

I have talked to many people that had the caddy e-brake and didn't like the holding ability. It would work ok if left in gear/park.

My HAD t-case e-brake will hold my truck (in N) on just about anything that the tires will hold on.

 

[ntsqd]

Nobody talks about a driveshaft drum brake anymore Most applications over 1-ton use them.

They have better static braking than a disc. It can't see it clogging up with mud to anywhere near the same degree as a drum brake at the wheel.

ding-ding!! For static holding power a drum is hard to beat.

Hydro-mechanical calipers were a bad idea. Take a look at late models with rear discs. I highly doubt that a hydro-mech caliper can be found any more. All of the rear disc Volvos and MBZs that I've seen used a drum p-brake inside the rear rotor hat.

MISF had the cad's on his Scout. That beast weighs at least as much as a K5 and they never worked very well. The best he ever got was just OK and that was after bleeding the brakes, then adjusting them, then massaging the leverage ratio, then......

If you google mechanical calipers you'll turn up a couple vendors. I know of one racing brake mfg was working on a mechanical p-brake caliper for John Deere. Don't know that they ever got it to work within JD's very narrow set of constraints. Ain't as easy to design a mechanical caliper as it might seem.

 

[ARAMP1]

If you scroll to the bottom of the page on that Go-Kart site, there is a mechanical caliper there also.

I bet the caliper (or two) would hold a full size truck well enough as long as the rotor was thin enough to fit.

 

[ntsqd]

It's pretty hard to get high clamping force and low cable draw distance. My guess, based on watching my co-worker deal with the above JD project, is that unless the rotor has a very large OD that it's holding power will be, at best, only OK.

Mico has a mechanical caliper that *might* work listed here in their 515 series. Using a 6" rotor it generates ~625 ft-lbs of brake torque. The problem is that Mico rates the caliper for a max of 5000 ft/min max rubbing speed. Even the 6" rotor exceeds their max fpm at 5k engine revs and a 1:1 trans ratio. I don't see a rock crawler doing that, but a mud machine might. Another problem is that this caliper is designed for a 1/2" thick rotor. Not sure if pad spacers to use a thinner rotor are even possible in this caliper. Mico says to contact them if you have a thinner rotor application, but I'll guess that they will want an order for more than one.

 

[ARAMP1]

If you're using it as a parking brake, this wouldn't matter.