MTFCA Forum

I have a 24 coupe and think i should get the rocky mountain brakes. I dont care if i die but it would be a shame to hurt that Beautiful car. Where do i start? Langs? Are they hard to install? And is it better to get the petal rather than welding on a tab yourself?

Agree, you can mend, the car cant be put back the same.
You can buy them directly. Vintage Ford has an advertisement.
Easy to install, but expect some clearance issues. Most folks add axle shims. I hate that. Changing to longer axles makes for a much bigger job.
I have always welded my own pedal extension. Until fairly recently, new pedals with cams were not available.(in old man years)
If you go with a new pedal, check for casting flaws on the cam before you install. (learned the hard way once)

speedytinc wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 28, 2023 5:32 pm

Agree, you can mend, the car cant be put back the same.
You can buy them directly. Vintage Ford has an advertisement.
Easy to install, but expect some clearance issues. Most folks add axle shims. I hate that. Changing to longer axles makes for a much bigger job.
I have always welded my own pedal extension. Until fairly recently, new pedals with cams were not available.
If you go with a new pedal, check for casting flaws on the cam before you install. (learned the hard way once)

Thanks John! good stuff

it doesnt look like vintage Ford has them. Langs has them for $1120.00 is that a good price?

Do you realize "Vintage Ford" is our Club magazine ? Bud runs an ad in the Vintage Ford for his brakes.

I bought mine a few years ago. Guess I paid about $900 for them.
Some day they might get put on the car.

The problem with reproduction parts is they don't always reproduce the part correctly. The same goes with the current Rocky Mountain Brakes.
If they were made the way they were made originally, there wouldn't be a need for axle shims. The original drums used a standard brake drum, with the Rocky Mountain drum riveted to it, therefor no need for shims!

Original, Can you post a picture of the "Original" Rocky Mountain Brake? I am not familiar with it at all. One I am familiar with is called AC which looks and works just like the current Rocky Mountain Brake.
Norm

I have RM's on all three of my cars and none have shims. Sounds like some other issue brings up the need. You can install the RM's in an afternoon easily, then takes a few short trips "in and out" to tweak the set up. You want them doing 90% of the work and the last 10% on the trans. brake drum.

If you have 26-27 rear axle with the larger factory drums, you don't need shims. If you have the earlier rear axle with the small drums, the currently manufactured Rocky Mountain brakes use a larger drum bolted between the hub and the original drum. This moves the inner drum closer to the backing plate and usually you will need either shims or longer axle shafts.
Norm

Tim

What do you do different that others need shims and you do not?

When backing up, you usually are going slowly. Also if you kill the car on a hill, it stops. If you have the original band in the transmission and you adjust the brakes so that a hard push applies both the rocky and the original Ford brake, it will hold, also adjust the parking brake so it comes on first when you pull back the lever. So you have two ways to hold the car from rolling backward. I live in the mountains and have no problems. Only one I know who had such a problem bought a car from which the original Ford band had been removed. He did not know that because he had recently bought the car. When it killed going up a steep hill he found out when he rolled back.
Norm

RajoRacer wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:28 pm

Do you realize "Vintage Ford" is our Club magazine ? Bud runs an ad in the Vintage Ford for his brakes.

no i didnt ..lmao i googled it and found a company in Cali that sells model t parts.. so Bud sells them lol that's clever.

Norman Kling wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 30, 2023 12:10 pm

If you have 26-27 rear axle with the larger factory drums, you don't need shims. If you have the earlier rear axle with the small drums, the currently manufactured Rocky Mountain brakes use a larger drum bolted between the hub and the original drum. This moves the inner drum closer to the backing plate and usually you will need either shims or longer axle shafts.
Norm

langs has different mods for different years. the later years are really cheap and of course mine are the most expensive.

Steve Jelf wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 30, 2023 4:05 pm

The knock on Rockies is that they don't work backing up. Just backing the car into the shop, that's not a big deal. But I can imagine being on a mountain road in a Model T that wants to roll backwards. Plunging off a thousand-foot cliff could be pretty disappointing.

I plan to install AC brakes, which are said to work in both directions. They also sell for about half the price of Rockies.

Flawlessly logical. so who sells the AC's ?

DHort wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 30, 2023 1:58 pm

Tim

What do you do different that others need shims and you do not?

I didn't do anything as the first 2 cars came with them, I put them on my '25 Fordor, and I suspect they all have the longer axle shafts.

Here are some original Rockies, from Original's car. Saw it at a tour last Friday. Nice looking castings.

...so who sells the AC's ?

See Larry Sidmore's ad in The Vintage Ford. Rich Baughman sells the linkages.

The new rockies are redesigned from the orginal design in that there's an increase in forward braking
And loose some backward braking
The orginals are happy mix in both direction
That being said only time I cursed new rockies on mountai road and had stop and I had stand on the pedal and still rolled back into the hillside

My disc brakes work the same, forward or backwards, wet or dry....just sayin'....

The photos above are on my 1913 runabout. Thanks for posting! They are 100% original Rocky Mountain Brakes.

I restored a set once.
They will equally lock the wheels up in forward AND reverse.

Do they also work better when wet?

No external brake material works good when wet - I always "ride the brake" to produce heat to assist in drying out the lining !

J1MGOLDEN wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 31, 2023 1:13 pm

Do they also work better when wet?

Definitely NOT.
A sudden down pour or stream crossing can lose ALL of their braking ability until dried out again.

The different braking power in reverse vs. forward is caused by the location of the brake band anchor point. The Rockies currently available from the vendors have the anchor point near one end to maximize the self-energizing effect while going forward. The original and earlier reproduction Rockies had the anchor point in the middle of the band, giving the same self-energizing power in forward and reverse.

Steve

Richard Baughman has medical issues and is no longer making any linkages. I wish he was.

Dave

I have those instructions too. I believe there is a page 2 for them also, but haven't seen a page 2. You might notice the cams on the bands for adjusting the alignment of the band. The first series brakes did not have this, and would have to be added to be 100% correct. The first series I'm referring to was made before the current offering, and as I mentioned Jack was not mechanically inclined, and probably didn't know what they were for!

I had some of the springs reproduced recently for the original brakes, and am willing to sell them for $10 each.