Brakes

Donor has front disk, rear drum. Just rebuilt drums and disks with all new parts and ceramic Raybestos pads. It will be very interesting to see how this compares to the 4 drums I'm used to. I also painted drums, rotors and calipers with VHT Black. Sure hope it lasts, especially after using the oven without permission!!

The paint holds up somewhat well. The Raybestos shoes squealed terribly when hot. Switched to Centric Heavy Duty and no problems. Also had to install an adjustable prop valve in the front to rear line as the rears were locking up very early. Given these are all stock parts that is highly unusual, but there you go.

Lines are new stainless from Right Stuff. The bends aren't perfect, but the fit is pretty close. The main front to rear line had to be replaced. I had to cut it for the residual valve and the prop valve, and it's really very tough to get stainless lines to flare correctly. So just put on the normal green line. Also had to make a line for the rear brakes from master to prop valve since the master is a different configuration.

Proportioning valve came from Pirate Jack. Looks like the same generic unit is sold by a ton of folks, and PJ has a great price. They actually have great prices on lots of stuff. MBM is one of the few manufacturers in the states, and PJ is their retail arm. Horrendous website, but good products and good prices. Beautiful OEM quality vacuum boosters. I did have significant problems with the aluminum valves leaking. Stick with brass.

Booster is PJ's new hydroboost. I got their last one for a song and it already had a short threaded rod. Went ahead and did a clean/rebuild just to check it out, but looks good. Mounting bracket is identical to the Moraine booster, and PJ sells the angle brackets...... A couple of nuts and it's a bolt-in! I did put in three washers on each upper bolt between the booster and the brackets to angle down the booster a bit. The Dodge master is much longer than the Olds, so there were some hood clearance issues. AN adapters and 'low profile' return 90deg adapter from Talon. I did have the accumulator retainer partially pop loose at one point and puke out some fluid. Had to remove the booster and use the bench vise to get it apart, new o-ring and reassemble. Frustratingly, the assembly is slightly too large to reassemble with the bench vise.

Master cylinder is from the mid 80's Dodge D150 pickups. Same bore as stock, but has a plastic reservoir and is aluminum. The mounting is a little different and it uses a deep pushrod hole, but the Talon Hydraulics guys make custom length pushrods and holes can always be fixed with a grinder! Also note that the holes are reversed - front hole is rear brakes. The sizes are correct, however.

The Dodge master does not have a drum residual valve, so one went inline below the driver's door. Two of them leaked badly - one side is pipe thread brass into aluminum and it was assembled without any dope or tape. Reassembled properly and they seal just fine. This can be swapped with a 2lb residual valve when I switch to rear disks easily.

The hydroboost is VERY strong. I still have a very firm and high pedal with the D150 master. A smaller bore master may help, or may make it worse. I'm currently using the manual brake hole in the brake pedal. The booster hole results in very twitchy brakes. A hole between the two may be a bit better.

Future plans:

Eventually will use C5/C6 brakes. I have a full set of calipers (got for cheap!) and various bracketry, plus '99 F-body rear brake plates.

The fronts are fairly straight forward. If I get AFX spindles then the brakes mount right up. If I stick with the stock spindle then Kore3 sells hubs and brackets.

Rear is a bit more interesting. I have an 8.5 corporate rear, but it has bolt-in axles. If it had C-clips then the F-body stuff would bolt right up. Problem is the bolt-ins need the retainer plate to hold in the axle.

Here's one solution on Classic Olds: cdrod's build, start at post 68 I do wonder if just putting the backing plate on the outside of the retainer would be sufficient..... Will be an interesting experiment.

Another solution is go for broke and get Baer's rear brake setup.

Regardless, all of that has to wait until I have larger wheels that can accept any such brakes!

Alternate brake master:

http://www.pro-touring.com/threads/99312-C5-master-with-hydroboost

2000 S-10 right side drive, ACDELCO Part # 18M974

Old plans:

Proportioning valve: check the guys at proportionvalve.com, they also sell pigtails and a bleeding tool. Note: the pigtails are vendor specific and the bleeding tools get mangled easily.

Hydraboost: Tempting. 'sterlingworth16' on ebay is in Denton and makes custom brackets and units. About $410 for booster, plate and adapted rod. He stopped selling the brackets that I liked which were very small, because they required a custom socket to mount. The new designs are essentially the same as bolting on stock angle brackets.

The reference for this swap is the booster from a '95 Astro has the same mounting pad. Cut off the bracket from a stock vacuum booster, bolt on the hydro, and go! ~200ish, but rebuilds only...... Earle's has good lines and special fittings.

Here's car craft's brief: http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles/ccrp_1105_chevy_astro_van_hydroboost_salvage/