First time posting here... Picked up an apollo 125. The rear brakes are hydraulic disc and the front are cable drums. The rear stops great while the front have much improvement to be made. I have seen a video where someone converted the fronts to hydraulic drums. Has anyone here done that? How much improvement will it make? Don't want to spend a small fortune to convert to disc if the hydraulic drum work well.
Thank you and looking forward to being around here.

 

There is little difference between cable and hydraulic brakes if they are designed right. First make sure those cable brakes are working the best they can. Check the pivots in the backplates are free to revolve. Remove drums and take off any glaze on shoes and drum by rubbing with coarse Emery. Check the inner cables move freely in the outers, cable lubrication is a problem these days, as you never know if the outer has a plastic lining inside, and plastic lined cables are picky about what lube you can use, but oil makes a big difference on old style metal to metal cables. Finally balance them properly by setting each adjuster so it stops both wheels at the same "biting point". The main reason there are still a lot of cable brakes about is hydraulic parking brakes are a bad idea. The Chinese use them, but take a look at all the Japanese makers, they go to a lot of trouble with modern disc set ups, to still have a cable parking brake.