46 pickemup in NJ "the Rebuild"

[paintman]

So not much of an update on my brakes other then I made some new lines to clean up the original crap I analized over for so long. With no heat in my garage, to many projects around the house, and some more back trouble that has kept me from crawling under the truck, things have been at a snails pace in the quest to get my brakes working.

I don't have any pics but I changed out all the rear lines eliminating the 2 thru frame fittings. Now I have only one line running from the master, to a prop valve, thru a residual valve, to a flex line, connected to a tee fitting mounted on the rear. and then the 2 lines acrosss the rear to the cylinders. Just like the factory does it. I think part of my problem was the thru frame fittings with the big cavities. I thought about getting new ones from Art Morrison that have the small hole all the way through, but they only make them 2 1/2" wide. And I need 2 3/4"

In other news, I read a thread over on the HAMB and it talked about using a quick uptake MC so I decided to give one a try. This is to compensate for the low drag calipers on the front. I ordered the one mentioned on the HAMB from NAPA and got it in 2 days. I soon found out the snout on that MC would not fit into the bore of a 7" booster. Sooooo, back to NAPA I went to get my money back! In all honesty I have know way of telling if I have low drag or non low drag calipers until I can get pressure back in the system so I can measure how much the pads pull back from the rotors. My calipers are just cheapo GM metrics I got with the Scott's kit.

Still wanting a new MC I ordered a new 1" bore Wilwood from Speedway. Only to open the box and see the holes in the MC don't line up with the reducer fittings. Is this right? Seems to me if i screw in the reducer fittings, the exit ports from the MC will be blocked off.



So if this Wilwwod MC is in fact defective I guess I will just toss in the 15/16 corvette MC I have, and see what happens. I know most guys say a 1" bore for disc/ drum, but I can't see how a 1/16th" would make a big difference. Man this crap is frustrating!!!!!!!

[paintman]

Well, she's back on the road with brakes! Only took over a year to figure it all out.
I wish I could point to one thing that solved the problem but I think it was more like a whole host of little ones.

I think part of my problem was I was trying to double flare stainless tubing. Even though Inline Tube said you can do it with their tubing, I think thats what was causing some of my leaks. So essentiallty I made all new lines out of regular, off the shelf stuff you can get at Autozone.

I also got rid of the Wilwood prop valve with all the fancy outlet ports. I think I may have had it mounted in a way that was traping air at the pressure switch. So now I just have a simple prop valve from Speedway with a knob.

When I was fiddling around with my booster I decided to measure how far the pedal was moving the rod. Turns out the rod was only moving about 3/4" before my pedal would hit the floor, but my MC cylinder piston needed to move 1 3/8" for full travel in the bore. So I was never really getting full line pressure built up. Changed up the pedal ratio and that made a worl of difference.

I also got rid of the rear thru frame fittings and went with a conventional style flex line that drops down to a tee on the rear and feeds each drum. Just like the factory does it.

Stayed with a 1" bore MC but still curious as to what an 1 1/8 would do.

All in all I think I pumped about 10 gallons of brake fluid through the system and finally got a good pedal and my truck stops great!

Lessons learned........KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID! stay away from stainless steel lines, next time go with calipers that don't use half assed banjo fittings. And never mount your booster under the cab!

Since I had the front end apart anyways, I chucked the 2" drop spindles and went back to the standard ones. So much easier to get a jack under it now!

Eye candy..................

[tune_1]

Good that you solved the brake issue. Truck looks good at that height.

Dwight

[solidaxel]

NICE looking truck and just in time to enjoy the rest of the summer

[Rickysnickers]

What size is the oval air cleaner and where did you get that nice tall filter? Thank you. BTW, the truck looks very nice!

[paintman]

Originally Posted by Rickysnickers

What size is the oval air cleaner and where did you get that nice tall filter? Thank you. BTW, the truck looks very nice!

Can't remember where I got mine. But just a quick google took me here
https://www.hotrodpartssupply.com/pr...nt-4-inch-tall

[Rickysnickers]

Thanks!

[docrock]

Its too bad your earlier pics are gone in this build. Thanks for the brake recap. I have the same problem with my brake pedal. I will go through mine to see if I can pin point my problem. Enjoyed the video of the truck driving. Looking forward to the next build