Thread: Defender poor brakes off road any ideas?

Its not good anyway with brake bias towards the front wheels in that situation. You don't have Maxidrive difflocks?

What sort of pedal do you have?
Is it spongy and long, hard and long or just rock hard?
That will tell us a lot.
35's will really test a Deefer's brakes, the booster isn't that great and speaking of which are prone to fatigue cracking around the M/C mount.
Anyone that's had one for any length of time has experienced it, a hard but long pedal.

Get someone to watch the booster and M/C while you stomp on the pedal, if it's cracked you'll see it flex and hear the whistle of air.

Do the usual type of checks of the vacuum hoses back to the booster. Could be vac pump, the stock Wabco ones are crap, plungers are prone to failure and they leak. One of the few places aftermarket, eg Bearmach is better;

If I still had my Deefer I was going to try and graft on a twin diaphragm Disco booster, something I'd really look at with 35's

I know a fella that installed a Disco-1 booster to his Defender and he was running 35's as well. A few mods required to the piping to get it to work but I believe he was happy with the results... Not sure if he's been in your position on a steep hill though...

It is probably the master.

Disco boosters are nice but they are no reliable and not needed. The stock later Defender brake system should let you lock the brakes any time you want.

Best guess is a vacuum leak, especially the cracked servo as suggested. Probably not seen round town because you rarely need the brakes on hard more than momentarily.

Originally Posted by Red90

It is probably the master.

Disco boosters are nice but they are no reliable and not needed. The stock later Defender brake system should let you lock the brakes any time you want.

With 35's?

I could just do that with 33's and everything was in excellent shape including SS braided hoses but it still failed the NSW brake test every year for too high pedal pressure.

With 35's you need to keep wheel bearings on the tighter rather than loose side as pad knock back offroad becomes a problem I originally set up my brakes with SS pistons, ss braided hoses ,new MC,
Slotted and dimpled rotors,reco the vac pump and check the booster.With 32" tyres the brakes were OK but not as good as I wanted and with 35's worse again so ditched the vac system and went with
Ford f350 super duty Hydroboost unit and a .0625" larger than the 110 MC .This gives higher pedal pressure but less throw which the hydro boost handles no worries .

AM

Noel, pad knock back on dirt was always an issue for me with 33's and I'd always run the bearings with pre-load.

A confidence tap to bring the pads back up before any sort of braking was an unconscious action.