OK, here goes. Not long after I got this car, the pass. side front flexible line to the caliper developed a leak, so I replaced BOTH front lines. They looked to be the originals, so I decided to take no chances. A little over a year later (last summer), I decided that I wanted to improve my brakes, so I inspected everything on the car. The pads and shoes looked OK, but the rotors and drums looked like they had been cut to their minimum. The rear cylinders looked like they were seeping and the rear drum hardware looked all original, so, I made my shopping list... here is what did

FRONT:
Summit Racing drilled and slotted rotors
Hawk ceramic pads
new calipers
new wheel bearings (inner and outer)

REAR:
New Bendix drums
new wheel cylinders
Bendix rear brake shoes
new spring/hardware kit

Since everything was apart, I decided to flush all the old brake fluid out, (it was DIRTY!) I did this by constantly adding new fluid to the master reservoir as the old drained so I did not empty the master cylinder in the hope that this would flush any crap out without making the master and the proportioning valve airbound. Put it all together, bled the system, and felt very little improvement while driving. I did a vacuum test on the booster and it held a vacuum, although it took some effort to build up the vacuum with my pump. I made sure I adjusted the rear shoes evenly. There is a bit more pedal travel before I feel any contact than I think there should be. I have had a couple of panic stops recently and I could not even get the brakes to lock up... scary. I took it to a shop, they bled the system, got no air out of it and then told me "those cars have crappy brakes no matter what you do"
Also, the first time I got onto the highway, the car shook so bad I thought my fillings were gonna fall out!!! Most intense was from about 60-70 MPH. After alot of troubleshooting, and rebalancing all four wheels, I realized the rear drums were causing the shaking. I bought another set and the car shook with those as well!!! WTF!!! I put the originals back on and the car drives smoothly again. I think part of my stopping power problem is the worn out drums. How can it be determined if the new ones are out of round? I have never had to get new drums turned, and I have done brakes on three of the six thirdgens I have owned. (the others were parts cars)
Does anyone have any ideas, thoughts, suggestions? My 84 Chevy C-30 stops better than my car!!! Thanyou in advance for your help!

 

if the disks and drums are brand new, they will likely have some machining marks on them. They usually come with a grease to protect them.

1) wipe off any grease
2) Drive normally, and brake often normally. The stopping power wont be 100% until the machining marks wear off and you have a shiny surface on the discs/drums.

Ive never heard of Bendix, are they an american or european manufacturer? Ive seen new discs and drums have to get machined, often....

Does the car brake worse than it did before you changed out the old parts? If its the same, thats fine. Replacing stock parts, and putting drilled and slotted rotors will make the braking, slightly worse, because the pads have less contact on the fronts. However, for the most part it should behave the SAME.

 

Yes, I made sure I cleaned the new rotors/drums with Brakleen before installing them to remove the anti-corrosive grease. The car behaves pretty much the same, not worse. Bendix is one of the brands carried by Summit Racing http://store.summitracing.com/partde...5&autoview=sku
I have also seen this brand in part stores locally, Pep Boys ect. Not sure if they are a domestic manufacturer or not, but have used the product before. So if I take the drums to be turned on a lathe, that should balance them? Never heard of that before. Why don't the parts stores and or the manufacturers of these parts tell you this? I think I need some digital calipers to measure these things myself. GM shop manual says maximum out-of-round is .002 inch... HMMM>

 

Gotcha.... Just makin sure, sometimes little things can be overlooked.

I usually havent had problems with american products for this kind of stuff, but in my autoshop class in highschool a few years back, my teacher told me it was not uncommon to turn rotors when they were new. He didnt care to put extra high quality parts on his car, so he would buy the chinese junk, machine it to spec, and put it on his car. So i got to see lots of new rotors that he sold get machined before installing on the car. Sure enough, most of the time they were out of round. or for discs, they were wavy.

Before you pony up the $$$ to get the rotors turned, try this...

If you install the drum on your car inside out, and put a couple of lugs on there, and turn it, you might be able to see the out of round. Usually its so bad you can see it with your eyes. Doing it this way isnt 100% accurate, because you wont get the rim on 100% centered, but itll give you an idea.

However its definately the rotors if you install the old ones and the shaking goes away....

 

What other cars do you drive frequently? The brakes on these cars, even when in good shape, do NOT have a very good feel to them at all. Everytime I go from one of my family's other cars back into the camaro I have to convince myself there isn't something wrong with my brakes because of how badly they feel in comparison.

 

Other cars... Hmmm lets see....
The monster you see in the background of my signature, the white
1984 chevy C-30 1ton pick-up
2003 Saturn Vue v6 AWD(wifes car)
2003 Mazda Protoge(moms car)
1994 Kubota B series tractor
1996 Ford Ranger reg cab, 2wd, 5-speed 2.3 ltr(previous vehicle for 9 years)
Out of all of them, the 84 C-30 has the best stopping power.
I put the same Summit rotors and Hawk pads on the wifes Saturn and that thing stops very nicely. The stock rotors were crap. Dealer said they had to be resurfaced after only 15k. Thing used to shake like crazy when you stepped on the pedal, now its good.
What can be done to improve the braking system on these cars? Is there some inherent design flaw in the master? How much difference would high performance flexible brake lines make? Porportioning valve? I just can't believe that three different cars with the same brake system design as ours is SO much more superior... there is about 3/4 inch of pedal travel before I feel the brakes bite. And when they do, they do not exude a feeling of confidence. I have a hard time even getting them to lock up (not that I have tried more than twice) I do not have the $$$ to go crazy... yet... but if I have to in order for these brakes to be totally awesome then I will...

 

The problem is the dinky 10.5" rotors. The lame little calipers don't help much either.

http://www.flynbye.com/id71.html

Check out the LS1 upgrade.

 

NICE! Thankyou Darkshot... I really appreciate all the help you have given me. The rear disc conversion bracket kit looks an awful lot like something one of the members here makes and sells himself...Hmmm. Wonder if his is same price? The LS1 upgade kit, does that fit behind my 15" stock wheels? Do I need to change my spindles to the ones that came on the 1LE optioned cars? I was thinking at the time to just buy the reman dual piston calipers from the parts store that I got my other stuff from until I found out the spindles were different. Should have done it then...

 

I don't think that the LS1's will fit in a 15" wheel. The Corvette standard C4 brakes do fit inside a 15" wheel. There are several threads on thee various brake upgrades. Best to read those first.

For better brakes I went with the C4 12" rotors and PBR calipers on the front. This is the standard C4 setup. Used Earls braided lines all around. The difference is night and day. At high speed there are actually brakes now. Where before it was a Flintstones act.The rear drums are left as-is (factory).

With 70 - 75% of the braking on the front's the rears are the last to upgrade.

As for the shaking with the new drums, I am not surprised. To keep the cost down the manufactuers don't balance them anymore. Same with rotors. When I did the C4 upgrade I balanced the rotors myself. They were way off.

To do so: used oil in the front bearings and no seal. This allowed the hub to freely turn. After I was satisfied that the hub was balanced I installed the rotor. It promptly rotated to the heavy side.

Marked bottom, removed rotor, drilled divots in the hat section with a large drill bit (IIRC it was a 5/8" or 3/4" bit). Note that these weren't drilled though, just a divot. Re-installed rotor, found the heavy side, marked, drilled.

Repeated until the rotor could be gently spun and stopped at random locations. I felt this was the best that could be done in this manner.

OTOH, could probably take the parts to an engine build shop and see if they could balance them. Most likely can be done in a crank balancing setup.

Have I mentioned how I hate high speed vibration? Nothing worse then having a car vibrate at speed. BTDT too many times.

RBob.

 

Very Cool! Thankyou RBob for the info. That is brilliant how you balanced the rotors. Never would have thought of that. Guess I cannot do the same with the drums. Guess I'll have 'em turned. I am lucky the rotors are of decent build quality. No problems with them on mine or the wifes cars. The Summit brand stuff has done well by me.
http://store.summitracing.com/partde...5&autoview=sku
I wish I asked these questions here before I did all this stuff. My brakes would be alot better now. Live and learn...