David Brown 885 tractor brakes.

[gordon stephenson]

A friend of mine has got a David Brown 885 1968 (old G reg) tractor, Does anybody know anything about the brakes,? He says that the pedals go right down despite the fact that the reservoir being full. I believe they are internal wet disc type brakes, Do they have a master cylinder for each side connected to the two brake pedals? And what sort of "slave cylinders" do they have? Hoping that the varied knowledge on this forum has some helpful information,
Thanks chaps, Gordon.

 

[Spark plug]

The 885 has dry drum brakes, if it’s a hydraulic system there will be two master cylinders and two slave cylindes.

Do both pedals go to the floor when they are pressed seperatly? And dose the handbrake work?

 

[Turbo]

If that's a 1968 DB 885 it will have dry drum brakes operated by levers, no hydraulic fluid involved! If it's a Case 885 it has hydraulic brakes but I don't know any more than that. I suggest you try these forums for more info.
https://dbtc.co.uk/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=1&sid=e332a15aff7c2b432715fe3b97f89d44
https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php

 

[gordon stephenson]

Thanks you so much for the information, I will have to get more facts from him, Told me that its David Brown and has hydraulic one fluid reservoir. If it has drum brakes I presume that they will be seen on each side of the transmission casing,

 

[pedrobedro]

David Brown tractor club forum has a bit here about them. A friend of mine has one which we use to power a log splitter, nice little tractor. More handy bits here and here.

 

[Turbo]

If you decide to remove the side extensions to investigate the brakes there is a procedure involving tying down the diff lock pedal. If you don't something falls off inside the gearbox meaning a whole lot more work to refit it.

 

[Bill Edwards]

Dry drum brakes as said, sounds likely to be a hydraulic problem.

To elaborate on what Turbo says, if it ends up getting the brakes stripped down then you MUST tie or weld down the diff lock pedal before removing the RH drive unit otherwise diff parts will fall inside the axle and it's not an easy thing to rectify.

 

[Turbo]

Dry drum brakes as said, sounds likely to be a hydraulic problem.

To elaborate on what Turbo says, if it ends up getting the brakes stripped down then you MUST tie or weld down the diff lock pedal before removing the RH drive unit otherwise diff parts will fall inside the axle and it's not an easy thing to rectify.

Did some of the 885's have hydraulic brakes? We had a 996 of the same era & it had mechanical brakes operated by push rods & I thought all the DB tractors of that age were the same. I know when Case got involved they modernised things but that was a few years later.

 

[Bill Edwards]

Did some of the 885's have hydraulic brakes? We had a 996 of the same era & it had mechanical brakes operated by push rods & I thought all the DB tractors of that age were the same. I know when Case got involved they modernised things but that was a few years later.

I don’t know.
My belief is that if it has a certain type of cab it’ll have hydraulics for the brakes and clutch whereas non cab models tend to be mechanical, however I’m not able to say for certain if this applies to all models.