Brake Light Switch

Friday evening I installed the new switch and tested/adjusted. Works good! Today I worked a bit on the wiring for it because the pigtail it came with was too short. I still need to splice in the heater control that *was* hooked into the brake light circuit... what was I thinking when I did that! (Nothing noted in the blog about it.) Taking it slow this weekend.

Starting the Tidy Up

Today's tasks started with trying to fit the brake light switch to the new swing pedal. Maybe could do it, but why not just order a brake switch for a '73 Cadillac to match the pedal? Done. Will arrive in time for next weekend.

I cleaned and checked the tightness on the master lines and prop valve, then made a small plate to patch the hole in the floorboard where the original brake linkage went. Stuffed some insulation there and on the firewall on either side of the pedal mount and re-secured the carpeting.

Next up was to modify the heater blower. The original design called for a formed rubber spacer between the blower and the plenum. I suspect that was to cut noise and vibration but it rotted away long ago and replacements are completely unavailable.  With my earlier repair of the heater, I used some rubber plumbing parts for clay pipe to seal the gap but now I welded on a flange and used foam sticky tape to seal the flange on the plenum. Now I need to step down the 5" air inlet on the blower to the 4" outlet I welded onto the flat plate that replaced the blister. Later.

With this much done, I put the fender panel back in but it's not completely bolted in place yet. I'll finish tomorrow. The outlet from the master rear circuit is very close to the inner fender so I may be doing a little work on that tomorrow too.

New Master

Alright! The new master cylinder arrived Thursday night. I bench bled it and put it in tonight. No more sinking pedal... Now tomorrow I can test the stopping capability.

Excellent Customer Service!

I let Rock Auto know that I had a problem with the master I bought from them and within about a half business day I got a reply back from "Dan":

Thank you for your email.  I am sorry to hear about your dilemma and apologize for any inconvenience.  So as not to inconvenience you further, we will not ask you to return the failed part.  You may dispose of the part as you wish and we will simply refund your PayPal account within 48 hours.

Well that's more than I expected and saves me a few bucks in shipping. I have a new Raybestos Pro Grade on the way, so next weekend I should be able to swap it out.

Success! (sort of)

I pulled Lucille out of the garage to get ready to bleed her rear brake circuit and guess what? She stopped easily when I stepped on the pedal! Woohoo! But, having trouble getting the back brakes to work well. I thought I needed to re-bleed the master and adjust the rear shoes. But after trying that, I decided to try some real troubleshooting. I plugged both the outputs on the master and stepped on the pedal. It held for a couple seconds, then sank. I rebled the master, same thing. So, I now know the rear circuit in the master is apparently bad. It holds, then drops.

After reconnecting the lines, and removing the bleeder plug from the prop valve, I started the engine, put the car in gear (the rear wheels were still off the ground) and stepped on the brake. Sure enough, the wheels stopped just great... then a few seconds later they started spinning again no matter how hard I held the pedal down. I let the car off the jacks and put the car in gear. No movement as the fronts held just fine. Ugh. I've ordered yet another master.

Bleeding Again

Got early this morning to get some work done before the heat really came up. (peak was 100.3°) Got the lines all connected up between the master and the prop valve, and rechecked the ones to the front wheels. Started to bleed the master and that went quick. First I did it with hoses looping from the outlets back to the reservoirs and used the brake pedal. Then I switched to reverse bleeding using my new tool. Easy. Then I reverse bled the two front lines in the front circuit with the new tool and found I had some leaks at the master and the prop. Tightened up, rebled and now I have a good pedal. More, I spun the front wheel and stepped on the brake and the wheel stopped. All good signs! I can't bleed the rear lines til I let the car off the jack stands and move her forward a bit. I'll try that tomorrow morning.

Assuming the rear lines bleed well, I still have a lot of clean up work to do. The mods to the heater need to be completed, though in this weather one hardly cares about a heater. There's the one broken off bolt I need to try to fix. There's the insulation and ducting I need to put back together inside, wire up the brake warning light and finally put all the inner fender well parts back together. But none of that happens til I am sure the brakes are solid.

I am a bit concerned about the lines that go from the master to the prop. I tried to coil the rear circuit line, with some success. I didn't really even try on the front circuit. Not enough room and not great results with the other one. I'll just keep my eye on it. (The concern is that the small amount of movement between the body and frame could loosen or fatigue the lines over time.)

Do it with Flare!

I got my new flaring tool tonight and after one test I knew it was $300 well spent! I got the Mastercool 71300 Hydraulic Tube Flaring System - 45°, Push-Connect, Double Flare. It even made the flare I wanted to make on the tube still attached to the car come out beautiful! Very impressive and very easy, even in stainless! Money well spent, for sure. I will need to get a second cone, as I can see where 3/16" stainless line is going to do them in somewhat quickly, but I'm not going to complain about that.

Tweaking the Booster

Yesterday I didn't get much done but I did get the booster mounted, checked the pedal for height, and got the eyelet sized correctly. The rod was nearly at the right length at that point, but I needed to do some small tweaks.

Today I trimmed the shaft a little and also shimmed out the booster out about a quarter inch. I shimmed the left side of the booster one extra washer because the master's front outlet was up against the fender. I think I am pretty much done with the mounting of the booster, but I will leave the master loose til I can bend up the lines. The pedal may still be just a tiny bit high but this way I know I am getting the full travel of the input rod. If it proves to be too bothersome when driving, I can always tweak it again later.

The Booster

The Esky booster arrived yesterday and, of course, it has a problem. While it's the same diameter as the test one I've been using from the '76 Buick, the input rod is longer and the eyelet hole is also too big for the pedal pin. I did some scouring on the Web to find out what can be done and it turns out that some people cut and weld that rod to fit their application and it doesn't seem to pose any problem. The only thing they warn about is getting the pin too hot as there are a lot of plastic parts where the pin goes into the booster. I did see a post where someone asks about threading the rod.

Tonight on the way home I stopped at OSH and got a set of dies to make threads as well as some other bits to use in case the threading didn't work. But I had very little trouble cutting off the eyelet and cutting a nice set of threads in the shaft. The eyelet for my small booster will now thread on and work perfectly. Only problem being that the screw-on eyelet hole is too small for the pedal pin but there is plenty of material so I can enlarge it without too much trouble.

Seems like every little step I've taken in this project involves some major issue that requires yet another tweak. I hope someday not too far in the future I will actually have working brakes on this car.

Frustration

Flaring tools are the bane of my existence right now. I had done most of the flares with a moderately priced device from Amazon, but on the last flare I had to do, it broke. I returned it and ordered a more bitchin one, at a good bit higher cost. Well tonight I tried to use it for the first time and it won't hold the tubing tight enough to make any flares. The tubing just scoots right out the side. So this one is going back to Amazon too. Time to bite the bullet and buy the most bitchin, best reviewed tool for the job, a Mastercool 71300 Hydraulic Tube Flaring System - 45°, capable of making Push-Connect and Double-Flare ends. Woohoo!

I have a Mastercool crimper for A/C hose and it's a very well made tool. Also expensive. This tool was not cheap either. More than three times the price of the one I am now returning to Amazon. But all the boards and reviews say it's awesome so I'll give it a try. Looks like it is also a lot easier tool to use since it uses hydraulic pressure to do all the heavy work. Now if it will just hold the damned tubing tight!

What a PITA!

Cuts and More Cuts...

Cut holes in the flat plate today... Got the holes for the master done, got the drain pipe welded in. (GM put two but I'm going to try just one.) Got the flange for air to pass from the plate to the blower mounted. Spritzed some black paint on it, mounted some sticky insulation tape and applied some RTV, then bolted it in place. Opps, snapped off one bolt. I'll have to see if I can extract it from inside.

Was going to mount the data plate to the new flat firewall panel, but then remembered the owner card slot the top of the grill support. Didn't attach permanently as I may want to move it later.

Destruction and Rebirth (It Don't Mean a Thing if it Ain't Got That Swing!)

It feels like I've been destroying my car. Cutting, chiseling, sawing... But now the firewall is ready for the new flat plate and I am working on drain and vent holes to replace those in the blister. I removed the original brake pedal and cut out the support bracket that held the hinge plate for it . Then I fitted the '73 Cad pedal in and tested it for position and operation, comparing it to Helen, my '76 Buick Electra for reference. It seemed very workable, almost natural. I checked a spare '70s GM 10" booster I had laying around to see if it had enough room to fit, and it does, so if the Esky booster is no bigger, we should be in good shape. Now I have tack welded the pedal bracket to the inner firewall panel and next step will be to mark the holes in the new flat plate to drill them for the booster.

Pictures above show the tack welded pedal bracket, the pedal extended about where it will be at rest, the view of the bracket from inside with a test booster attached, and the view showing that a 10" booster will indeed fit. Woohoo!

Disassembly Again

Took the master, booster and prop valve all apart and pulled from the car. And...

Now I've done it... I pulled the blister off the left side cowl and made a flat plate to mount the swing pedal on. I've passed the point of no return since the firewall now has a cutout where the driver's floor vent used to be. But it does look like I will be able to fabricate an air outlet that the heater/vent can use to get fresh air from the cowl even without the blister.

So here's the damage done today:

Seems I may be able to make something workable.

Thinking and Planning

One thing I find prevalent in the poking around I've been doing is this: The pedal ratio may be too low. According to popular sources on the Web, the pedal ratio must be in between 4:1 to 5:1. Apparently some older cars, like the ones from the late 50’s, that had power brakes from the factory used a ratio of almost 1:1. Obviously that would produce a very hard pedal. But how much can I change the ratio with the existing linkage? And, what if the volume the master puts out is still low even after doing all of that. I am thinking the best way to go would be to dispense with the current rig and switch to a swing pedal.

With a swing pedal something like this, I thought I could use the master ($30) that GM used with those calipers I bought. Then I'm sure the volume is there. (I asked Scarebird and they said not to worry about using a Fast Fill/Quick Take Up master. They say it makes very little difference in the amount of pedal travel.) The Esky master is too big to fit the hole in the booster, so I need a matching '00 booster... yes I ordered one ($140) from Amazon. I won't know if I have enough room for the Esky booster until it arrives as I have no idea what diameter it is. I should be OK with up to 10". I have the swing pedal from the Coupe Devil... a '73 Cad, that might work. I thought that since the car already has a sort of swing pedal arrangement that it might be modifiable to work. But the Esky master needs 2" of travel to bottom it and mounting a pin at the spot on the existing pedal that would give me that amount of travel works out to less than a 2:1 ratio. Too stiff! Looks like I need to mount the '73 Caddy pedal which has a ratio of a bit more than 4:1.

Ugh...

BTW: I found a book online that informed me that I can tell a Fast Fill/Quick Take Up master by looking for a bulge in the casting. Sure enough, the Esky master has the bulge.

So it stands to reason a conventional master won't work well with the calipers I got for the Scarebird disc setup, even though Scarebird says it won't matter significantly. Apparently the bulge is the reason the master doesn't fit the booster for a conventional master. (Duh!) So if I can't get the Esky master/booster combo to fit or work, I'm gonna have to go to a conventional master/booster or call Master Power Brakes and find out what they have that I can use.

Another issue with an FF/QTU master is, it can apparently take a lot of time to bleed the rear brakes, due to the small refill port from reservoir to rear bore. The suggestion is to take at least thirty seconds before reapplying the brakes after each stroke, to allow time for the rear bore to refill. Not a big deal, but something to be aware of.


Double Ugh...