What were the brakes like before you replaced everything? I had a bit of a shock when I bought mine and drove it for the first time, the brakes were worse than anything I'd ever experienced but I did get used to them.
Col
When I got it around 6 years ago they were terrible, so I put new drums, shoes, cylinders/master cylinder and brakelines and they were OK. could pass an MOT and was drivable - I've done about 10,000 miles since then but modern traffic was always stressfull, pedal pressures high and a lot of any stop was done on the gears. Late summer 2019 we did a fully loaded drive from Swindon to Weymouth and had to get there for a show, it was a horrendous journey, A road, fast traffic, steep hills and lots of stops and when we arrived I swore I would sort the brakes what ever it took. I fitted Wolf wheels ready for a Zues disc conversion but decided to get everything as good as possible first. New adjusters helped, the bigger servo did too, my 8" S3 one was in poor condition and the new 9" one off a 90 was actually a lot cheaper. Looking at the shoes I could see they were hardly worn and going back over forum posts; while most people had terrible brakes there were some with drums who had no problem and could lock al the wheels. Digging a bit deeper the people with good brakes often had Ferodo linings so I set out to get some. I couldn't find any but I did find that there were only 4 or 5 manufacturers, just getting re lablelled. I knew I didn't want BP or Mintex so I indentifed 3, a German one, an Italian and B&B, spoke to 2 out of the 3 and got good info from B&B (they are in Banbury - their tech guy even called me back at home). The German one emphasised how hard wearing they were for van use and could do 100,000kms, that got them rejected. When I found the B&B were £30 I bought some to try out, and was amazed. The Mintex look like you would expect, mottled, sparkly, and hard pressure with a finger nail leaves no mark. the B&B are kharki colour uniform with no flecks but the odd bubble (!) on the edges as though they are poured. A finger nail leaves a clear mark. They are much higher friction and I fully expect them to wear much faster but as I say, I don't care. The "acid test" is my trip home, there's a long fast by-pass down hill to a roundabout, on the old set up I would go through the gears 1/2 mile ahead and put a lot of force on the pedal, now I drive at the same speed as the modern vehiles and brake the same and only use a normal pedal force, its a totally different experience. We are 2 1/4T (got weighed) on 11" brakes all round, TLS at the front and 235/85-16 tyres.
Had the B&B not fixed the problem my next option was to get the Mintex shoes relined at a specialist - they quoted £80 per axle set and could do them in a week and guarenteed much better braking which I thought was a very good deal. OK its really imporant to sort all the leaks, mine has new hub seals, lands and cylinder seals but I also think the big problem is a lot of the linings on sale now are too hard.
