Dual circuit braking system upgrade

A quick question regarding brakes. My Elf currently has it's standard brake set up, single circuit drums all round. Now I love original, and love the lockheed master cylinder, but the car has to be safe for us to use as a family (as safe as such a small car can be). Because of this there are a number of upgrades taking place; rear seat belts, Cooper S 7.5" discs, superfins on the rear, seat with headrests (losing the old leather will hurt a lot ). While carrying out this work I was wondering about upgrading to a dual circuit brake system for the added safety in case of failure. So a couple of questions.

1) Has anyone done this?

2) Am I just being paranoid about a single circuit system. I've noticed that the vast majority of period feature cars in the mags keep their single circuit systems.

3) Apart from a dual master cylinder (yellow tab) and new pipes is there anything else that I'll require? Do the wheel cylinders or backplates need to be changed?

humph wrote:A quick question regarding brakes. My Elf currently has it's standard brake set up, single circuit drums all round. Now I love original, and love the lockheed master cylinder, but the car has to be safe for us to use as a family (as safe as such a small car can be). Because of this there are a number of upgrades taking place; rear seat belts, Cooper S 7.5" discs, superfins on the rear, seat with headrests (losing the old leather will hurt a lot ). While carrying out this work I was wondering about upgrading to a dual circuit brake system for the added safety in case of failure. So a couple of questions.

1) Has anyone done this?

2) Am I just being paranoid about a single circuit system. I've noticed that the vast majority of period feature cars in the mags keep their single circuit systems.

3) Apart from a dual master cylinder (yellow tab) and new pipes is there anything else that I'll require? Do the wheel cylinders or backplates need to be changed?

From memory but don't quote me, the Austin Metro has a dual braking system but only to the front discs. The Metro calipers have twin feeds but I'm not sure if both lines are servo assisted. If you decide this is the way you wish to go, the calipers just bolt on but you may need to consider 12" wheels as I think these will only fit 8.4" Mini/Metro disc assemblies. If you have access to a machine shop, you may be able to modify them to fit 7.5" Cooper S disc assemblies but I'm not sure what's involved and if it is a practical solution.

That's an interesting thought, thank you. I really want to keep the 10 inch wheels though, but I'll look into it.

humph wrote:That's an interesting thought, thank you. I really want to keep the 10 inch wheels though, but I'll look into it.

I'm certain that 7.5 discs will fit inside 10" wheels. If not there are some manufacturers of 10" wheels that will fit over 8.5" discs..I have a link if you are interested (ebay) around £250 for 4

Always interested in a link to good information Tony. Thanks for the response.