Handbrake

The standard lever arm from the MGB was replaced with a lever arm supplied with the body kit. This was fitted, attached to the handbrake cable and the whole system adjusted. The first hole drilled for the cable fixing bolt was a little too close to the handbrake assembly. This meant that even on full adjustment the handbrake wasn't tight enough to lock the wheels.

I moved the hole a little further to the rear and when adjusted still gave me plenty more adjustment to allow for brake wear. I also made a bracket to hold the standard handbrake switch from a later MGB. This is a push to break switch and is purely to test the low fluid brake warning lamp when the handbrake is on.

Although the chrome is a surface of the handbrake is a little rough it will be covered by a gaiter during the trim stage.

Pedal Box

The build manual talks about having the pedal box modified although it doesn't say why. After contacting Findhorn Cars they also don't know why so no modification was carrried out. The old pedal box was blasted and powder coated ready for the master cylinders. The clutch master cylinder is new standard MGB unit. The brake master cylinder from the original car was a single circuit cylinder and so not suitable. I bought the braking pack from Findhorn however they supplied the MGB dual circuit brake cylinder which, with some modifications to the pedal box would fit. I queried this and they agreed that the wrong cylinder had been supplied and duly sent me the correct one from a renault 5.

I drilled a couple of holes in the front of the pedal box and inserted a bolt with two lock nuts. These were adjusted to that the bolt protruded far enough to act as pedal stop. I also drilled a further hole beneath those for the pedal operated brake light switch. The brake master reservoir had to be mounted on the side of the pedal box however the clips provided by Findhorn did not hold the reservoir securely enough so I fabricated an aluminium plate to clamp the unit in place. The hoses were then fitted to the master cylinder. I also had to cut a hole in the bulkhead for the master cylinder as it is slightly too long. This is described well in the build manual with a template for the hole.The brake pedal needed modification to bend it a little to the left to get the correct spacing. The pedals were cleaned with a wire brush and painted in Hammerite Black. I bought a new pivot bolt and bushes and these needed reaming to provide a good fit.

Rear Brakes

There was nothing really special about the rear brakes. The brake line was fastened to the rear axle with cable ties and P clips aroung the differential.The rear brake cylinders were non standard, from a mini I think, to ensure that the rear brakes don't lock too early. The shoes, drums, springs, adjusters etc were all new. Study the diagrams carefully before fitting the springs to ensure that they go in the correct slots on the shoes.

Front Brakes

The front brakes were also standard.

I fitted reconditioned calipers and new shoes and anti-rattle springs. New bolts were used to fasten the calipers to the axle. These were bled in the normal way using an EZYBLEED system. This allows pressure from the tyres to be used to force the brake fluid through rather than pumping the pedal. By pumping I found that when releasing the brake pedal air would be sucked through the threads of the bleed valve.

Brakes Lines

The brake lines were fairly straightforward to run. There were holes pre-drilled in the chassis for the pipes and the p-clips to hold them.

I used new stainless steel braided flexible hoses to connect to each of the calipers and from the body tub to the rear axle.

The plastic clips provided in the Automec brake pack were fine for fastening to the fibreglass tub.