TeriAnn
Explorer
Mercedesrover said:Call me crazy but I'm keeping drum brakes. Don't know what all the fuss is about disks. All they've ever done for me is get stones stuck in the calipers and scream going down the road. My 88" is still on drums and it stops like a dream. Bleed them properly and keep them adjusted and I think they're fine.
109 brakes are very different animals from 88 brakes. They work fine on the flats and quite good down hill, but ...
Those big brakes up front have both shoes set up as leading shoes. This means they brake very well in the forward direction and hardly at all in the rearwards direction. For practical purposes you have both front shoes and the leading shoe in the rear brake stopping you in the forward direction BUT only have the trailing shoe in the rear drum doing most all the stopping in the rearwards direction.
If you spend much time climbing 109s you will realize how poorly those 2 rear trailing shoes hold a nose up 109 in place. My total phobia of drop offs aside, the worst situation I can imagine for a stock brake 109 is having to come to a stop on a steep climb with a sharp turn and a cliff behind you.
What a front disc brake conversion will do is give your 109 front brakes that work just as well in the rear direction as in the front direction (like a stock brake 88).
I think stock 109 brakes are just fine for open field savanna type traveling but I suspect that you may have other things in mind. Go ahead and stay with the drums for a while. They work fine in most situations. If you need to come to a stop in a steep nose up situation go immediately into reverse gear then hold the vehicle in place. Then if it starts rolling rearwards you can have an in gear controlled rearwards descent.
Your rig, your choice. Might be best if you log hours on the stock brakes then determine if you actually need good rearward braking.