Monday, January 27, 2020

Mystery Mechanical Brakes revisited


Bertelsbeck
Above is the Alfa three shoe brake system, hydraulically operated and used into the sixties, clearly a completely different system than the Bendix. And different to the Degener Company instructional poster below. So the questions are now:
 Did Porsche or any other German manufacturer have 3-shoe mechanical drum brakes?
Looking closer at the car pictured below, did the Porsche 356 (if the drawing is of a 356) ever have mechanical brakes?
 Googling the 356 brake system only finds reference to hydraulic drum brakes, which was the industry norm when the car was released in 1948.

Same brakes, pre-war car
One last note, the image below from a forum; a German farmer found this unknown brake on his agricultural trailer, but there was no further information given.
 Ok that's it for these mechanical marvels!

thanks JP!

2 comments:

VectorWarbirds said...

I wonder if the three shoe system worked better being mechanical? Maybe some leverage advantage with three over two given just your foot? Need some brake engineer to pipe in before I drink myself to death over this;)

Timbug2 said...

Certainly some truth to drinking yourself to death when it comes to setting these brakes to the specifications for shoe to drum clearances. I've chased these clearances around the assembly many times only to have a dragging shoe(s) when finished. A most unsatisfying process to go through to be sure.