How good are 4 Piston BENDIX Electra Disk brakes?

[BqUICK]

Hi,

The standard big Buick brake was the venerable aluminum finned drum. They were pretty good in my experience.

Does anyone know how good were the Buick Disk Brakes that succeeded the drums as an option? (Was that 1969?)

Thanks!

[BqUICK]

After looking into brakes a bit over the past few months I have found out many interesting things. A "Big" brake is good because it gives you more "moment arm" or a longer lever to apply braking force. (Note that cars with taller tires require more stopping distance!) You want "rigid" calipers that dont flex when you apply the brakes. Drilled holes are for outgassing and slots are for pad cleaning. There are certainly more things to look at than that but you get the picture.

These brakes were offered in 1967-1969 as a pretty rare Electra option. They have 4 active pistons, weigh about 15lbs each and are built like they were made for a locomotive. Well, its a Buick so whats the diff? Anyway, typical brakes today offer 1.75 or 1.88 pistons and call them "massive" "Huge" , etc. The 1969 Electra Bendix brake calipers have 4 pistons that are 2.125" inches in diameter! So how would you advertise these today, "Humungus"?!?"Hulking"?!?

I do not know what the actual road test results were and if anyone can get their hands on them I would be happy to take a look. The calipers may have been discontinued by GM perhaps due to cost, service issues, or even weight . The hardware stats are pretty impressive. Equally impressive is the rest of the option package including large 12" vented rotors and a large capacity 1" piston Master Cylinder.

Bendix rebuild cost about $550 with Stainless Steel Sleeves. My Electra GSX Road Racer, "Faithful Pursuit" , featured in this site, will use Wilwood Forged Billet Superlite calipers . The Bendix units will be rebuilt for my '69 Electra 225 Custom "GS" Convertible.