The rear brakes on a Vanagon do a lot to help stop the vehicle. The 2" wide by 10" diameter offers a lot of surface area. Having the rear brakes working properly and using a good friction material makes a lot of difference. The main reason that most of think the brakes suck is because we can't get good friction material back there. From the factory the rear linings were a semi-metallic similar to what you find on some front disc pads. They had "bite". I tried getting a set of these some time back and they were not available for the Vanagon. Don't know if that was just a stock issue back then. FWIW the Go-Westy shoes fit without needing to shim out the lower shoes mounts. There does not appear to be anything special about the lining material. Auto-Zone carries new shoes for a really good price. They will need 3-4mm shims on the bottom, more if the drums are worn. The lining on this seems to work well after they get seated. I am still searching for a good shoe for the Vanagon. I used the dealer stuff until it became NLA. Dennis -----Original Message----- From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of Jim Felder Sent: Monday, October 6, 2014 2:06 PM To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM Subject: Re: Porterfield R4-S Rear Brake Shoes They would have to be some mighty good shoes to show a noticeable improvement on the rear brakes. Jim On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 12:59 PM, Neil N <musomuso@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi all. > > For various reasons, am considering upgrading rear brakes to these: > > http://porterfield-brakes.com/images/portstrt2008_11_06_02_45_30.pdf > > If anyone is running these, did you find a marked increase in braking > performance? > > I'll email porterfield but does anyone know it the lining on these is > as thick as the OEM dealership shoes? > > Thanks > > Neil. > > -- > Neil n > > Blog: tubaneil.blogspot.ca > > '88 Westy http://tinyurl.com/c8rlw6p > > '81 VanaJetta 2.0 "Jaco" http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/ > > Vanagon VAG *Gas* inline-VR Engine Swap Group: > > http://tinyurl.com/d7gd5ej > |
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