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Brake upgrade writeup

bruceh

Well Known Member
I just finished up my 5th annual condition inspection and my extra project this year was to do a brake upgrade.

Write up and photos are on my blog.

Basic story is for about $300 you can install thicker brake discs on your OEM Matco calipers and wheels and get much better braking capacity. I've seen other threads on VAF that discuss this type of an upgrade, but it involved making spacers and trimming down the wheel nuts to make it fit. I found a nice way to make it work without all of that.
 
Great description of the mod Bruce thanks. I thought about thicker rotors couple years ago but amount of work required stopped me. I am on my recently replaced fourth set of stock discs and previous one wasn't worn much. A good friend is reconditioning them for me.

 
This is a no-brainer upgrade

Excellent job! My question is why doesn’t Van’s have this as part of the standard kit? As vitally important as good breaking is, and the fact that there’s no other modifications required, this is a must have, no-brainer, upgrade. This couldn’t add but maybe a few extra dollars to the kit price...if any at all. After reading your wright-up, and assuming that this would be the same modification required for a tail dragger, I’m going to incorporate these thicker rotors into my -7 build right off the bat. Thanks!!
 
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I just finished up my 5th annual condition inspection and my extra project this year was to do a brake upgrade.

Write up and photos are on my blog.

Basic story is for about $300 you can install thicker brake discs on your OEM Matco calipers and wheels and get much better braking capacity. I've seen other threads on VAF that discuss this type of an upgrade, but it involved making spacers and trimming down the wheel nuts to make it fit. I found a nice way to make it work without all of that.

Did the same 3, 4 years ago. This was one of the most cost-effective performance upgrades I've done on my plane.
 
Nice write-up Bruce. Are the rotors and spacers in production? I can't find the part numbers on your site listed on Matco's site.

Qty 2 ? WHLD164-017HE ? ROTOR, BRAKE DISC HIGH ENERGY
Qty 2 ? WHLBSPE5L ? SPACER, Long CALIPER E-SERIES
Qty 4 ? MSCAN4-22A ? BOLT

Thanks,
Greg
 
....I can't find the part numbers on your site listed on Matco's site.

Qty 2 ? WHLD164-017HE ? ROTOR, BRAKE DISC HIGH ENERGY
Qty 2 ? WHLBSPE5L ? SPACER, Long CALIPER E-SERIES
Qty 4 ? MSCAN4-22A ? BOLT

Thanks,
Greg

I called them and the young lady that I spoke with said that those were valued part numbers and that they do in fact have those parts in stock. They were about to close so I wasn?t able to talk to the main guy that could confirm if those are in fact the correct and only parts that?s needed for the upgrade. I?m going to call them back tomorrow to to confirm everything is correct and place my order.
 
I just finished up my 5th annual condition inspection and my extra project this year was to do a brake upgrade.

Write up and photos are on my blog.

Basic story is for about $300 you can install thicker brake discs on your OEM Matco calipers and wheels and get much better braking capacity. I've seen other threads on VAF that discuss this type of an upgrade, but it involved making spacers and trimming down the wheel nuts to make it fit. I found a nice way to make it work without all of that.

Same setup on the 6As?
 
I?m not sure if the older kits came with Matco wheels and brakes. I?ve seen some build logs that show Cleveland brakes.
 
I just finished up my 5th annual condition inspection and my extra project this year was to do a brake upgrade.

Write up and photos are on my blog.

Basic story is for about $300 you can install thicker brake discs on your OEM Matco calipers and wheels and get much better braking capacity. I've seen other threads on VAF that discuss this type of an upgrade, but it involved making spacers and trimming down the wheel nuts to make it fit. I found a nice way to make it work without all of that.

The other threads talked about thicker discs on Cleveland brake applications used before Van's went to Matco. That conversion cost about 1/2 the Matco price.
 
Great description of the mod Bruce thanks. I thought about thicker rotors couple years ago but amount of work required stopped me. I am on my recently replaced fourth set of stock discs and previous one wasn't worn much. A good friend is reconditioning them for me.


Vlad, That disc on the right looks just like me old discs. I upgraded to thicker discs 300 hours ago. Inspecting the brakes today, the discs looked like the one on the left in your picture, with no noticeable pad wear. The disc and bell have no signs of any heat tracking.

Is is very worth the effort to upgrade to thicker discs.
 
Any concerns regarding the increased gear loading? I suspect the increased braking load would be well below the loads from a firm landing, which also loads them in the same basic direction.
 
This modification is not increasing the stopping power. The brake pads are the same. It is the ability for the thicker disc to absorb more heat energy, so you can brake longer before you reach a critical temperature to lose braking power.
 
There is a version of this "upgrade" for those with cleveland brakes too. But you have to make the spacer plates yourself.

I got the parts, but not yet done. will go for it this winter.
 
This modification is not increasing the stopping power. The brake pads are the same. It is the ability for the thicker disc to absorb more heat energy, so you can brake longer before you reach a critical temperature to lose braking power.

Hate to nitpick a great writeup, but your blog says "I did another hard application of the brakes on my landing to get a feel for the grip of the upgraded brakes. The braking with the new discs felt much stronger." Sounds like increased stopping power to me. No?

thanks

erich
 
The answer is weight!

Excellent job! My question is why doesn?t Van?s have this as part of the standard kit? As vitally important as good breaking is, and the fact that there?s no other modifications required, this is a must have, no-brainer, upgrade. This couldn?t add but maybe a few extra dollars to the kit price...if any at all. snipped

RVs were originally equipped with Cleveland magnesium wheels and brakes. They use the same wheels & brakes as Cessna 150s & 152s. Van is extremely motivated to keep the weight of his products down. Low empty weight means more useful load. It isn't the cost, but the added weight.

I did basically the same thing on my 8A. I didn't want to use Matco wheels, because at that time there were issues on the A models with the Matco nose wheel. I believe those issues have since been corrected. I got a used Cleveland nose wheel from a 6A owner. My Cleveland main wheels and brakes I got new [NOS] from a Long-Eze builder, who upgraded his brakes. See the link below to learn more about the issues with Vans brakes. They are fine for the lighter RV3 & RV4. See the second page of the thread below. Dan Horton lays it all out.

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=31732&highlight=brake+upgrade

If you are using either Firefox or Chrome with the add on to defeat PhotoBucket's image blocking, you will be able to see the photos I posted of my modified brakes.[and all the other PhotoBucket hosted photos on this & other sites.]

If you haven't installed this add on to your Firefox or Chrome browser, I explain how below.

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showpost.php?p=1364270&postcount=5

Charlie
 
Questions

If you want increased stopping power upgrade to Grove Or Beringer!
Walt,
What sort of improvement do you get? And what sort of weight penalty do you pay? I know that when Vans dropped the Cleveland wheels and brakes due to cost increases, there was basically a 0.8 lb per Wheel / brake weight penalty. Might you have part numbers for the upgrade kits?
Charlie
 
Walt,
What sort of improvement do you get? And what sort of weight penalty do you pay? I know that when Vans dropped the Cleveland wheels and brakes due to cost increases, there was basically a 0.8 lb per Wheel / brake weight penalty. Might you have part numbers for the upgrade kits?
Charlie

Didn't care about the weight, I wanted better brakes than the stock units, lots of info on the Grove site.
Dual pucks, larger pads, thicker discs = more stopping power. Master cyl change at the same time.
http://www.groveaircraft.com/rvwheel.html
 
Nice stuff

Didn't care about the weight, I wanted better brakes than the stock units, lots of info on the Grove site.
Dual pucks, larger pads, thicker discs = more stopping power. Master cyl change at the same time.
http://www.groveaircraft.com/rvwheel.html

Nice stuff. Magnesium wheels like Cleveland, so probably no weight gain there. The "tail dragger"[P/N 50-201] brakes are rated just slightly higher than the stock brakes on the old RV kits [when they came with Cleveland wheels/rotors/calipers.]
However, Grove's heavy duty units [P/N 50-213] are rated higher than Cleveland's super heavy duty units [P/N 199-152]. There will be some weight gain there, due to thicker rotors and larger calipers.
I know that a lot of Long-Eze guys replaced the 199-152 Clevelands that came in their kits with Grove stuff. Their issue was brakes overheating due to the very tight wheel pants on the Long-Ezes.
Does anyone know the Matco model number of the wheel/brake kit now supplied on the newer kits?

Charlie
 
Nice stuff. Magnesium wheels like Cleveland, so probably no weight gain there. The "tail dragger"[P/N 50-201] brakes are rated just slightly higher than the stock brakes on the old RV kits [when they came with Cleveland wheels/rotors/calipers.]
However, Grove's heavy duty units [P/N 50-213] are rated higher than Cleveland's super heavy duty units [P/N 199-152]. There will be some weight gain there, due to thicker rotors and larger calipers.
I know that a lot of Long-Eze guys replaced the 199-152 Clevelands that came in their kits with Grove stuff. Their issue was brakes overheating due to the very tight wheel pants on the Long-Ezes.
Does anyone know the Matco model number of the wheel/brake kit now supplied on the newer kits?

Charlie

Just my opinion but not a huge fan of the Matco stuff.
 
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