If you have a classic car, the manufacturer most likely included drum brakes with it when it was made. Drum brakes are inexpensive and easy to manufacture, so they were commonly used in older cars. However, there are a number of issues with drum brakes that can worsen your car's braking performance. Switching out your car's drum brakes for disc brakes improves your safety on the road by making your brakes more reliable. To learn more about the difference between drum brakes and disc brakes and the benefits of switching your car to disc brakes, read on.
What's the Difference Between Disc Brakes and Drum Brakes?
Drum brakes and disc brakes both use friction to slow down the rotation of your wheels, causing your car to slow down or stop when you press the brake pedal.
Drum brakes are attached directly to your car's wheels. When you press on the brakes, a brake shoe in the drum brake presses against it, and the friction between the drum brake and the brake shoe slows down your car.
With disc brakes, you have a brake rotor attached to your wheel. When you step on the brake pedal, brake pads attached to the disc brake press against the brake rotor and slow down your wheels.
What Problems Are Common in Cars That Use Drum Brakes?
The main issue with drum brakes is that they're prone to overheating. Drum brakes are enclosed in a metal cylinder. The friction between the brake shoe and the drum brake creates a significant amount of heat. The metal enclosure heats up and takes a long time to cool off.
If you brake frequently, especially at highway speeds, drum brakes can quickly overheat, which can damage them. Hot drum brakes can also boil the brake fluid in your car's brake lions, causing it to turn into a gas. Gas compresses more easily than liquid, so the boiling brake fluid will cause your car's brake pedal to feel loose and unresponsive.
Since drum brakes are enclosed, they can also collect water when you drive over a puddle and some water splashes into them. Water in your drum brakes will reduce the friction between the brake shoe and the drum brake, causing your car to come to a stop more slowly.
What Are the Benefits of Switching Your Car From Drum Brakes to Disc Brakes?
Disc brakes aren't enclosed like drum brakes, which keeps them cooler and also prevents them from collecting water. They're open to the air, so the wind blows across them while you're driving, cooling them off quickly. When you switch your car to disc brakes, you'll have better braking performance when you're driving in the rain because they don't fill up with water, and your brakes will be less prone to overheating when you brake frequently.
If you have a vintage car that uses drum brakes, switching to disc brakes helps keep you safer on the road by improving your car's braking performance. You can easily switch out your brakes by purchasing a front disc brake conversion kit that matches the make and model of your vehicle. Switching your front wheels to disc brakes will give you the greatest benefit because most of the weight of your car sits on them because of the weight of the engine underneath the hood.
Front disc brake conversion kits contain everything that you need to swap out your car's drum brakes for disc brakes, and switching out your brakes is fairly easy to do on your own if you're used to working on your car. If you don't work on your car yourself, you can take it to an auto repair shop to have the kit installed. Once you've switched out your brakes, your brakes won't be as likely to overheat, and you'll be able to stop your car more quickly when you're driving in the rain.
For more information on auto front disc brake conversion kits, contact a professional near you.
