1969 Custom/10 clean up

[Steve-W]

Thanks for the great info HG,

Originally Posted by hgs_notes

Did you get the rod from the power brake set up that connects to the brake pedal? They are different lengths. The non-power brake rod from the pedal is shorter and won't work on a power brake set up.

from the booster to the bracket we used the rod that came with the mc/booster. from the bracket to the brake pedal I made one my self, because the default one wasn't long enough.

Originally Posted by hgs_notes

Have you measured how much vacuum you have? It should be a good 15" or more at idle. Mine will run about 10-12" while driving and increase at idle. Drops to almost nothing when accelerating. Measure it at the vacuum line to the booster.

No I haven't, that's a good tip. I can use a standard vacuum gauge for that right? someone also told me how to test the booster. with the engine running, pinch the vacuum line between the booster and intake manifold. if the engine starts to ref lower than the booster is leaking.

Originally Posted by hgs_notes

If the brakes and master cylinder are properly bled (not always easy, I did mine multiple times) and the brakes properly adjusted the brakes should be firm. If you have too much pedal movement before you feel pressure then the rod connected to the brake pedal needs adjusted.

the pedal travel feels good, but indeed I need to bleed them again because on the first stomp on the pedal is is soggy and then firms up if I pump the brake.

Originally Posted by hgs_notes

When I converted to power brakes I had to learn how to brake again because they grabbed so much harder and quicker than I was used to. I used the C-20 booster set up.

OMG...I'd give my left arm now for grabby brakes.

[Steve-W]

yesterday I went over the brakes again, re adjusted the rear to make them tighter and took apart the front brakes to see if anything was seized up.

after putting everything back together I had a friend helping me bleed the brakes the old way, by stomping on the pedal. I know thats not the way, but we where careful not to let the brake pedal go to the floor, thus damaging the cups.
then we took it out for a test drive.
Seeing I don't have MOT, nor doors..I can't take it for a 20mile drive, so it was just 2 circles around the block, but I did manage to get the right rear wheel to lock up! so there is some progress .

now seeing the rear wheel locking up, perhaps I should change the plumbing on the master cylinder again? (now the most forward chamber goes to the rear and the backward chamber goes to the front)

[Steve-W]

Today I visited a client who was just around the conrner of a renowned USA garage in the south of Holland (Blazerparts.nl) . So I popped in and had a chat with the owner about my brake problem.
to him my problem has a simple solution; use the master brake cylinder and booster which came with the front end...
he says the new set I have is for a Nova or something small, but not for a big 'ol truck

as a trip down to memory lane, or back to page 1 of this thread, you can see I got a MBC and Booster with the complete crossmember..
I'll be installing it on Friday and hope it works as promised.

here the pictures of the set as I picked it up....5(!!) years ago?? OMG..it's about time to be driving it right

[Steve-W]

Today I started my conversion to the other master brake cilinder and booster.
took of the old one


then test fitted the other one, because I had to adapt the bracket to fit the mount points


then I cleaned it ang gave it a fresh coat of paint..that'll have to dry, so mounting it will be Friday.


ofcourse I'm left with one question: the biggest chamber is for the rear brakes and the small one for the front?

[RockinKees]

You can't have all the luck, Steve.
Trust me, I know!

In the end it all comes your way

[Steve-W]

How about some murphy's law?

Yesterday I desided to take off the MBC, because today I would be picking up the refurbished one.
no comments needed, just look at the picture

yes the freaking stub snapped!!! and I wasn't even applying real power to it.

But..luckily, I have exactly the same booster laying around and to be honoust it even looked a bit better. so I test fitted and gues who stuck his ugly head around the corner? yeah... Murphy.
the pin that goes from the booster to the pedal is over an inch shorter


ow well...something to do tomorrow night I guess

[Steve-W]

Last night my mate and I headed to the garage in good spirit
first we made a new brake pedal rod (don't know if thats how you call it) from two other ones






and the result:


Booster mounted, referbished master brake cilinder mounted, brake lines connected and brakes bleeded..
Hey!! And Murphy is back, no pressure...WTF!!
So, another round of bleeding without any result
Then we bled the brakes manually, being extra careful not to press the pedal to deep, but no brake pressure. Erghllll ok, so then we re-adjusted the rear brakes, just to be sure. when moving the brake pedal, we could see the brake cilinders work in the back aswel the calipers in the front, but the pedal has to travel sooo deep and will continiue to sink. (yes with the drums back on)

against all logic we desided to take her out for a spin around the block, considering it was 1am, nothing much could go wrong because I still have the park brake which works fine. But as suspected, no improvement. she will stop, but it takes a while and also pumping the brake pedal doesn't improve the braking.

assuming that the factory referbished master brake cilinder is good, there should be air in the system..but where??? We pumped close to half a gallon of brake fluid thrue the systemm
I'm so sick right now..

[Steve-W]

back to the brake story..
I now bench bleeded the master brake cilinder and that actually did give some progress

now I ordered some new rear brake drums and I'll pick them up next thursday, untill then I'm not messing with the brakes..just letting it rest so to say

I then turned to another problem and that is that the thread on the steering shaft was completely shot, so I went over to my neighbor who has a lathe

turned out good!

[RockinKees]

Hey Steve, hope you get your brakes done this time!!

Nice to have a lathe, they come in very handy some time

[hgs_notes]

How are the brake hoses? Any bulges in the rubber?

[Steve-W]

Originally Posted by hgs_notes

How are the brake hoses? Any bulges in the rubber?

The brake hoses are all new as are the brake lines, so no proboems there.

today I drove 125 Miles for nothing..the shop which ordered my brake drums didn't get them in on time..guess he could have called me?

atleast he will ship them to me free of charge now, but it'll be after the weekend

[BigMike]

Just read through your entire post, cool man. Hey, on your brakes, is your proportion valve hooked up correctly? I tried looking at your pictures but I couldn't really tell. Just to check, here are pics on mine in my 69 and a diagram to help.

My other "front" line out is plugged because I have a "T" down by the frame that separates the line so it can go left & right. You can plug one of the fronts to it and the other front comes from the left side (the way you have it mounted on your firewall) And the rear brakes would come from the top


This view shows the other front brake line, or in my case my only front line


And here is the diagram to better help.


Disregard my brake line Xing. I had bought the proportioning valve kit years before installing it and just never changed it. It never fit the "right" way like it was supposed to and I didn't want to buy a different setup since it works perfectly just the way it is.

[Steve-W]

Thanks Bigmike for the input and love how you mounted the proportioning valve, the brake line cross looks good.
atleast I now now I have hooked up everything correctly, so thanks for the diagrams.
due to a bank holiday my rear drums didn't get delivered yet, so me and two friends tried to mount the doors..OMG..I never imagined it being so difficult .
I'll have to take of the front fenders again, to get good acces to the bolts of the hinges.

[Steve-W]

Wow and suddenly we're three months down the road again..

This is how she looks now:



So we got the doors fitted, took us a lot of time, including taking of the fenders again, just to get normal access to the hinges.
Also replaced the vent window rubbers, which is quite a pain, but with patience it's doable.

Brakes..yes lets talk brakes; we got the new brakes drums in the back mounted, replaced the master brake cilinder one more time..bled the brakes until we went crazy and the result? the brakes work..kinda.
so with the engine turned of the brake pedal is hard, but turn the engine on and I punch the pedal to the medal...so I'm still not a 100% happy..but it stops in a acceptable way, meaning it won't lock up 4 wheels, but I'll be able to stop it before running into a concrete wall.
So at this point I'm not doing anything about the brakes anymore until I take it for MOT.

So now on to the next subject, the harmonic balancer.
I thought mine was shot, because of the clunking sound when the engine iddled and I had already bought a replacement one. I had taken pictures and went down to a second hand parts shop, who told me:"oh you have a small balancer, like on the 327 engine".. now I didn't give that remark a second thought until I watched instructual video's about changing the balancer.
I saw that the difference between the 350 and the 327 is that the 327 crankshaft doesn't have a threaded hole..like my engine, so do I have a 327 than?

Ok and the problem turned out to be the pulley that had come loose..so I stuck in 3 bolts with locknuts on the back, now I'm sure it won't come off anymore.

[RockinKees]

You have some bad luck with your engine Steve..
Hope all gets better from now on!

[Steve-W]

Originally Posted by RockinKees

You have some bad luck with your engine Steve..
Hope all gets better from now on!

Ah well...it's only a hobby right, so I'm not loosing any sleep over it, I think

Originally Posted by hgs_notes

My old 283 doesn't have a threaded hole in the nose of the crank either. Oh and there is a special tool for pulling those power steering pump pulleys. Not expensive.
Never heard of anyone having as many problems getting the brakes to work properly as you. Very odd. Don't slam into any concrete barriers. The barriers will win every time.

Yes I have seen the tool, but ordering would take long and we figured we’d manage with a regular puller… lesson learned so to speak.
Regarding the brakes..at some point in the future, I’m going to exclude the brake balancer and see if that changes anything, but for now..let it be.

Originally Posted by Aus69c20

I'm along for the ride. Interesting to see these c10s all over the world. Were they ever sold new over there? Good luck overcoming your problems. Perseverance wins out in the end.

Perseverance /pəːsɪˈvɪər(ə)ns/ [persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success] hmmm seems I need patience as well , but I’m close to running out of it.

[Steve-W]

So we're three weeks down the road and yesterday I finally get a call from the shop who was supposed to overhaul my steering gear... they hadn't even gotten started yet, because they can't find the parts???

I'll be picking it up tomorrow after work and tell them in mostly 4 letter words what I think of there service..

I checked online at LMC and for a complete pump including the resevoir cap, pulley and the steering gear. It would cost me $337,- wich in my book is very acceptable. Ordering it in the Netherlands though, brings some extra costs with it, so for me to have it laying on my workbench it'll set me back $550,-

what else have I been keeping myself busy with? well together with a mate we completed the doors. we put on the side mirrors, made some door panels which are now off to be painted, replaced the vent window rubbers.






Oh and we bought another truck..
yes I know we haven't finished the 69 yet..but along came this 1950 GMC 3100 with was someones project car. luckily for us he wanted to get rid of it
All the hard labor has been done, so there's no rust to be found in the car anymore..it's just a huge jiggsaw puzzle. I'll be opening a seperate thread for this.

[Steve-W]

OMG!! I could have never imagined how many different power steering pumps are out there. I was in the shop today and the guy put three on the counter which all looked the same to me, but all had different mounting positions.
idiot me, because we damaged the steering core, I just tossed it into the old iron container, forgetting the refund you get for it. also not having the old one made me have to gamble about which one to take.
then we had a problem with finding the right coupler shaft..we tried three, but none of them was the correct one, so he'll order the correct one, but it won't be in until the first week of October

So it turns out that the PO probably build this truck using a more recent donor car. because the steering gear is of a late 70's model and the pump and bracket were not standard.
But atleast I can mount the pump and gear, but the pump will need some work because ofcourse it doesn't line up exactly right with the other pulley's.

this weekend I'll have an update.

[Steve-W]

So, I ended up taking my steering gear, intermediate shaft and coupler to the shop, because nothing fitted together. they fixed it and I picked it up yesterday, but didn't have time yet to put it in.
In the mean time I have been taking my truck apart, because there were a couple of things bothering me. first of all my left header runs against the lover control arm. the right side is fine, but left sits to low.
So I thought of putting in new engine mounts, perhaps that would lift the engine a bit. I don't need much, half an inch would do the trick.
but ofcourse to get to the engine mounts, the headers had to come off and while in the process of removing them I spotted some wiring which was routed wrongly.
Also I was not happy the way I did the plumming of the brake lines and where the brake distributor was sitting. So BigMike, I stole your idea and did almost the same setup you have. I first had to weld a bracket, paint it and it turned out ok. but for the life of me, how do you get the lines to go straight and looking clean...because if you look at the brake lines for the front...pff, very messy..but at this stage I just can't care less and it will have to do for the DMV check in hopefully two weeks?

[hgs_notes]

My old 283 doesn't have a threaded hole in the nose of the crank either. Oh and there is a special tool for pulling those power steering pump pulleys. Not expensive.

Never heard of anyone having as many problems getting the brakes to work properly as you. Very odd. Don't slam into any concrete barriers. The barriers will win every time.

[Aus69c20]

I'm along for the ride. Interesting to see these c10s all over the world. Were they ever sold new over there? Good luck overcoming your problems. Perseverance wins out in the end.
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[dfwright]

I just found this build thread, and read through all of it. Wow! What an adventure you've had so far. I am not sure I would have been able to keep going through all of that, especially all the brake issues. Well done! I'm subscribed, and look forward to seeing how it continues to come together.

[Steve-W]

Originally Posted by dfwright

I just found this build thread, and read through all of it. Wow! What an adventure you've had so far. I am not sure I would have been able to keep going through all of that, especially all the brake issues. Well done! I'm subscribed, and look forward to seeing how it continues to come together.

Thanks for the support dfwright, and seeing I've been at it for years it's about Time i finish it ��

[RockinKees]

With small steps forward, you are comming there in the end...

Question:
Why not built your own enginemounts, then there are no more issues with headers I think?
You can built them as you like.

[Steve-W]

Originally Posted by RockinKees

With small steps forward, you are comming there in the end...

Question:
Why not built your own enginemounts, then there are no more issues with headers I think?
You can built them as you like.

Haha Kees, if I would posses 1% of your skills that might be a possibility, but I wouldn't know where to start to be honest..

But if I may ask, how much harm would it do if I raised the engine with a 1/2"?
and regarding the angle of the engine-tranny vs driveshaft to differantial, what do I have to take into consideration?