Details Regarding Brake Services and Different Kinds of Brakes

Brakes are important part of a vehicle. In a car, usually pedal brakes and hand brakes are made available. You use the pedal brake when you want to stop while driving and the hand break is used while parking your vehicle.

Brake services are needed if the vehicle tends to grind, squeal or grab and cause jerky stops. Brake servicing is also done when the warning light flashes. Usually automotive repairs companies include brake service. This consists of an examination and evaluation of the brake system, resurfacing serviced drum or even the rotor, brake pads or shoes being replaced.

These packages ensure that you get dependable stopping power. There are various vehicles which have specific requirements when it comes to braking and so only those equipments whose performance has been checked and tested by the manufacturer for the particular model should be used. The brake servicing usually also consists of reducing the harshness and noise by slotted and chamfered requirements as per the original equipment. These include formulas which are vehicle specific so that the pedal feel is delivered and the performance of the original brake pads is enabled. Some packages give multi layered shims as well.

All modern autos as well as light trucks use hydraulic brakes except for the brake which is used for parking. Large trucks as well as equipment for construction use air brakes.

The hydraulic brake consists of the following:

• When the pedal is pressed, it presses the piston which is in the cylinder.
• This applies pressure in the cylinder where the hydraulic or brake fluid is.
• As a result the pressure is carried to all the wheels as they contain slave cylinders.

There are 2 kinds of brakes. There are Disc brakes as well as drum brakes.

Drum brakes

The drum brakes have two half moon kind of brake shoes which press outwards against the brake drum as a result of the action of the slave cylinders or wheel cylinders. Brakes of this kind are found in the rear of vehicles and sometimes on the front of some vehicles.

Disc brakes

The disc brakes on the other hand have a caliper which presses the pads against the flat brake rotor sides. The wheels have these rotors or drums attached to them and this stops the vehicle.

Earlier vehicles used to have a single cylinder which worked as a master cylinder and there was just one brake fluid system. This had disadvantages like incase the fluid pressure dropped, none of the brakes would work. Also, when there was a hard stop, the vehicle weight would be cast towards the front wheels and so the rear wheels would lock up. Now some cars have a rear brake which operates from 2 sections of the dual master cylinder. There are proportioning valves as well and these are complex. They also have antilock brake vehicles even though they have proportioning valves and dual master cylinders.

Power brakes use either vacuum or hydraulic boosters. Here, when the pedal is pressed, the valve opens and the booster is then operated. In this, even if the engine is dead the brakes are not lost but the only difference is that the brakes will need to be pressed harder.

Anti lock brakes have a computer which senses the speed the wheels are rotating at. When the wheel is slower than the others, the computer then releases brakes on that particular wheel and the computer then reapplies brakes – so it works like pumping breaks for the driver but faster than the driver could ever be able to do.

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