Rolls royce cloud III brakes help needed

I'm currently helping a friend get her 1963 rolls royce cloud III back on the road.
The car is by all accounts the same vehicle that was on the stand at the motorshow of the same year, does anyone know the car or have any history?
Apparently the car has been to america and back in its's lifetime but any more information was lost when the previous owner passed away.
Any way back to my main question:
I'm having problems regarding the brakes.
More specifically the front ones, the braking system on the car seems to be quite different to anything i have come across before, could anyone explain how it works and more importantly what could be at fault?
Also what is the purpose of the part on the transmission and how does it work?

I put together a site making workshop/parts manuals on CD available. There's one for the Clouds that would answer those questions, plus ones you'll come up with in the future.

The site is here:

http://mutley.hypermart.net/RollsSubstituteParts.html

You can click on the Rolls Royce section on the left, and scroll down to the Cloud manual

More specifically, the Cloud CD is directly here:

http://mutley.hypermart.net/ROLLS_ROYCE_26_BENTLEY_WORKSHOP_Service_Manuals_CD _19562D1965_.html

Larry