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Old 09-11-2017, 01:23 AM   #109
gokellurself
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Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: Oakland, CA
Posts: 114
Re: Kell's Two Cents - 1946 build

alright so I got a full day on the truck like I was hoping and made all the progress I was hoping to make. I want to step back real quick and update on the brakes and how they were giving me so much trouble. Now that I have experience in this area I feel I could go back in time and knock out everything I needed to do to get them bled and done in a day. I think it took all the time that it did because I wasn't even aware how to approach the situation with a thorough, systematic way in order to get them done right the first time. I think it's made all so worse just cause you're dealing with brake fluid and getting that dripping all over the place

Anyways, here we go

Right off the bat I needed to change the location of the remote reservoir fill. I always find myself trying to be slick, thinking I'm being smart then finding that it's really more of a headache. I mounted it on the back wall of the under seat area, where with the seat on I couldn't even get a funnel to it. I went ahead and moved it near the front on the side and got it so I could fill it quite easily.

Progressive Automotive offers to make you a brake linkage, all you gotta do is call in with your dimensions and they'll send one out to you. My booster is placed so far back that when I saw the dinky thing they sent me I went ahead a cut a new one out of solid 3/4" stock and went with that instead.

So at this point I was ready for day one of bleeding the brakes. We went old school with it and had a buddy over pumping the brakes for like an hour straight and us not getting anything out. I was starting with the farthest wheel, so I'm in the rear and just not getting anything... I go ahead and send him off. The fronts seemed to at least be getting fluid in the lines, though those didn't seem to be bleeding either. Even with no pressure on the line I found a leak on the front left line coming off of the front distribution block. Now this is another situation where I thought I was being slick and tucked the distribution block all funky in the frame... It made it a b**ch to get to and now I know that especially on brake lines, or any type of plumbing for that matter, try to keep the connections in easily accessible locations... Being as that my cheapo flare tool was probably the suspect, I went down to the autoparts store and picked up a pre-flared line that happened to be the perfect size and got it switched out.

So now day 2 I realized I should really try more aggressive means, and I went and picked up a harbor freight vacuum bleeder. With this I was getting somewhere. The fronts seemed to be getting fluid through but I was getting absolutely nothing but air out the backs. I sat doing it for an extended time just thinking it was coming slowly but surely, however it never did... I began having concerns about my rear brake cylinders, as I had changed the bleeders on them but not the actual cylinders. They were old and original, so if something were wrong I figured that could be a cause of a bunch of air getting through.

Not sure if they were ever actually an issue, but as a precautionary measure I went ahead and switched those. On the third day I added teflon tape to the bleeders as to try to cut down on the air getting pulled in through the threads. This seemed to help ALOT and by now I was finally getting some pedal inside the cab. Around this time however I began realizing that I had been skipping the steps of double checking the gap between the booster and cylinder and also bench bleeding the cylinder. I figured these were adding to my soft pedal woes.

I pulled the cylinder, realized my huge gap, closed it up and bench bled the cylinder. Put it all back together and was finally actually getting decent pedal.












Last edited by gokellurself; 09-11-2017 at 12:31 PM.
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