Minor brake upgrades, Ford or Marina?

[TerryG]

I want to fit uprated brakes to the front of the mog so my g/f can drive it around hilly derbyshire without worrying about brake fade (as using engine braking is out of her remit). I have found 3 different kits, Marina based (£300), ford based (£350) and "high spec" ford based (£550).
As the only "performance" mod i have on the car is a HIF38 carb i'm not interested in the high spec kit but is there any real difference between the ford / marina kids (other than the ford one being £50 more expensive)?

[Majicmark]

My Mrs Drives around here in Cornwall on standard Minor brakes & gets on well with it as it is (as long as all shoes adjusted right & wheel cylinders free),believe me we have so good hills here too But Marina brakes would work fine.I dont think there would be much to compare between the two on a Minor. The other option is to fit a servo to the Minor & keep the shoes,this will also give an improved braking action & you can get a remote servo kit for about £140 i think. At the end of the day it is personal choice. Cheers Mark.

[TerryG]

Looks like my question has been answered for me. Bull Motif have stopped supplying the standard escort kits (useless buggers) and the price advertised on their website is wrong, it should be £370 not £347.
Marina brakes here i come!

[Morrisand944S2man]

Why upgrade?? The standard Minor drums are perfectly adequate, provided they are maintained and serviced properly.

Properly maintained standard Minor brakes are GOOD!

[TerryG]

Several reasons for thinking about an upgrade but the main one is because mine were siezed solid. I freed the cylinders off, cleaned up the drums and they "work" but they are nothing like as good as i think they should be so they need replacing.
It isn't much more work upgrading to discs than replacing like for like and discs require no monthly adjustment so no getting covered in brake dust every month checking the shoes. I know from experience that high speed braking in that car is at best "adequate" but if you need to do it twice then it's poor.

Saying that i have now had my hand forced as nowhere has any of the marina / reasnobly priced escort kits in stock so i'll be fixing the drums. Maybe new drums, shoes, cylinders, pipes and hoses (i may as well replace the lot as the lines are a bit rusty and the hoses are cheap) will give decent braking. If that is the case they i will probably stick with the drums as it doesn't do very many miles (and if the gf wants to use it every day i'm sure i can manage testing it on the weekends to make sure they are OK)

Fingers crossed the master cylinder is good as it's only 5 years old but sitting un-moved for 3 of those probably hasn't done it any favours.

[JPB]

....Properly maintained standard Minor brakes are GOOD!

They are and, being radial in the orientation of the linings, are self-servoing in a way that disc brakes simply can't be.
But I think that the maintenance of calipers and pads is far less time-consuming as there's none of the worries about adjustment, plus they tend not to suffer anything like as badly in wet conditions as waterlogged drums.

Marina front brakes are capable of hauling a Dolomite (Sprint included) to a halt perfectly satisfactorily for road use, so they ought to be little short of outstanding on the slightly lighter Minor.
Be aware that the fluid reservoir should, ideally, be extended by means of an external, transparent one (on the bulkhead or some such place) when you have discs as the fluid can drop well below a safe level in the stock master cylinder when discs are used since the pads' routine wear will add considerably to the volume of the system as they reach further from their retracted position every time they're used.

The last Minor whose brakes I modified was fitted with Riley 1.5 front drums as they're usefully larger than the stock ones, but nowadays those aren't quite so commonly found in scrapyards so Marina discs seem like the logical next step.