My 23-cent brake repair story

[Highsider]

Right after I bought my ’57 panel truck a couple of years ago, I had the local repair guys install a new frame mounted Speedway master and diaphragm for me.

Lately, my brake lights have been staying on and I have to reach back in and manually pull the pedal up by hand for the last inch of travel.
To “solve this issue”, I kept reaching under the hood with a can of spray lube to hit the friction points on the pedal shaft, where it goes through the floor board and any linkage pivots, but I didn’t have much success.
I got fed up with this, so yesterday, I got out the mini floor jack and stands, to gut under with a light to see what’s up.

Found one of the linkage through-bolt nuts had an ordinary 3/8” nut, when it should have been a nylock nut. It was obviously overtightened and was causing binding. On with the new nut and “bingo”…the pedal has that satisfying, old truck, pedal THUMP when it hits the top of it’s travel! I remember that sound from my childhood.

Maybe I will get instantly improved gas mileage?
What bad things could have happened to the vacuum diaphragm from constant actuation?
I am glad the dragging brakes didn’t start a fire.

[mr48chev]

The simple things that are such an easy fix when you finally figure them out. I'm not sure on the brake diaphragm but I doubt that it would hurt it enough to worry about.