THE PORTAL HUB - Pinzgauers, Haflingers, Volvo 303s and more!

Folks,
I have a general question regarding braking performance of the stock brakes on a 712. I am planning to re-locate the Pinz to our house in Nevada for use in the Sierra and Pinenut mountains. I’m wondering about the Pinz’s performance on long highway descents. I know the deficiencies of the drums after getting wet, but what about long, steep highway drops? Obviously use the gears as much as possible but are there other techniques or concerns to be aware of? I don’t have experience with the idiosyncrasies of drums, only discs. I have lost braking before in Landcruisers, so I am a bit paranoid. Thanks in advance.

I regularly go down long steep grades in my 710K from Bay Area to Barstow, Mojave, and DV etc.
Never had a problem. I try to stay ~50MPH on steep downgrades -- Fear factor. I have the
TD Tranie and on down grades typically 4'th gear severs me well controlling speed, needing the
brakes is secondary.

From my house elevation to ANYWHERE else is a 3,000 foot to 5,000 foot descent. With the Pinz's wind and drivetrain drag, going down to 4th (maybe 3rd if heavily loaded) means almost no brakes are needed, so the descent is a non-issue. I do not recommend staying in 5th and using the brakes for a long descent or you run the risk of overheating the brakes (this is not a Pinz dependent issue - this happens in ANY vehicle). Well adjusted brakes, with properly functioning vacuum booster, the brakes work just as well as any modern vehicle (with the exception of no ABS and getting the drums wet!)

I was in the Vermont Overland Rally (VOR) last year running around VT at somewhat elevated speeds and on some long hill descents the drums on my 712K were nothing but fade city and I adjusted them the day of the race start!
Because of the sever brake fade I am now converting to disks!!!!!
Since owning my pinz I wish it had
Disk brakes
Power steering
Over drive
Thanks to folks on this forum all these things can and will be added!
I would seriously look into going with a disk brake conversion.... I am not a fan of the 6 drums and the amount of adjusting they need and the effort need to adjust them...
I even drilled holes into my Ford transit wheels to cut down on adjustment steps and time and... I still hate it!

I drove my Pinz down the Mt Washington auto road in New Hampshire last summer. I think it’s about 7 miles of windy road with average 12% grade. There was a passenger with me and lots of camping gear, but not excessive weight. Using lower gears meant less braking and it was not a problem at all, but we were going pretty slow. I actually had a hub seal leak on one of the wheels that day, so really only 5 of the 6 brakes were doing any work and it was still fine.

Brake fade is a very real problem in the Pinz, if you don't use the gears. I went through the European Alps in mine a few years ago and many mountain passes I came down very slowly in 3rd gear. No problem then, but 4th was to high and wouldn't hold it back enough.
I more or lost my brakes here in Tassie 2 years ago, trying to keep pace with some other 4wd friends. Got too carried away in a high gear on a long decent trying to keep up with the others and had little or no brakes by the time the bottom of the hill came.

I would take a look at this thread: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=11065
A seriously well planned/engineered solution.
While there are many aspects that I like, I think the predominate one (beyond better braking) is that it does not involve any permanent changes to the Pinz braking system, everything can be put back to stock if desired!
I have not purchased yet but plan on it shortly so I can install in the warmer Spring weather.
Just my 2 cents
Dan

Bikemkr and I originally where working together on the disc brake conversion - the issue with his truck is the Cepek wheels which, although very large internally, they are wide and with the wheel moving outward (due to the inherent design of the disc conversion) the outside edge of the wheel would stick too far out from the body and would cause excessive load on the wheel bearings potentially.

For a wide wheel (such as 8 inch) it needs to have a backspacing of about 7.5 inches to work well with the disc conversion. I think the Cepek wheels are more in the 6 inch region. I need to go talk with the Trail Ready guys (which happen to be in the same town as me) to see what is the limit of their wheel as far as backspacing. For that kind of money, I personally would go with the Hutchinson beadlock wheels as used on the TD Pinzgauers and Canadian military Gwagens.

The challenge is finding a suitable disc brake rotor that would fit over the stock hub flange without machining since the Cepek wheels have the same 5x160 wheel bolt pattern. The previous disc brake conversions (such as on the SARPINZ) used a machined wheel hub which involved making it smaller and changing the bolt pattern to something smaller like 5x112.

Here is a photo of the inside of the Cepek wheel (this one happens to be a Land Rover 5x165.1mm) showing the interior space. I think it is possible to make the disc brake conversion work for these wheels but would require different disc and brackets than the ones used for the 16 inch wheel:
Here is a photo of a Pinz 710K with the Cepek wheels:
They also offer them in 5x130mm pattern for G-wagens which should work with the existing disc brake conversion kit as this is the same pattern as used on the Sprinter wheels. These are designed for the Tibus portal kits which also require a large backspacing:
BUT - for this kind of money I would consider the Hutchinson wheels which are true double beadlock wheels and are 16 inch diameter (The Cepek are 17 inch). Here is a photo of one in Oklahoma which has them:
Here is the posting on them: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=10858&hilit=hutchinson