the gift that keeps on giving: Part 3

7173Mustangs.com

Help Support 7173Mustangs.com:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

72HCODE

"My World is Fire and Blood"
Joined
Jul 4, 2010
Messages
3,091
Reaction score
56
Location
New York
My Car
71 Mach 1.
Part 1 started here:

http://www.7173mustangs.com/thread-never-ending-master-cylinder-leaking-issue

Part 2 here:

http://www.7173mustangs.com/thread-master-cylinder-experiment

its mid august;

Recap, 8-10 years ago i made a poor decision in rebuilding my entire brake system. I decided to Go Stainless steel on the lines, and Dot 5 for the brake fluid.

On the surface that may seen like 2 good ideas but over time it has proven to be the worst thing ever.

So the gift that keeps on giving: Since my master cylinder experiment was a success in that the thing has not leaked in over a month i felt much better about driving the car on VERY long trips.

so i've been doing that putting 100s of miles on the car and getting used to the weird issues it still has. one nagging issue is she pulls to the left under heavy braking. I've done the alignment a few times and everything in the rear is new and i've messed with the adjusters 100000s of times and so have professionals but to no avail she still pulls left.

Now years ago when i rebuilt my rear drums, i made another error i ordered new wheel cylinders and i was told one side was on back order but they sent me replacements. I also didn't know they made 2 different sizes of wheel cylinders, i just ordered what i thought was correct.

off hand i do not remember the size cylinders, just that one was a wagner and the other might of been a doorman. I put them on the car and went on my way... the car would pull left on heavy braking. I had other problems to slay so i left it on the todo list.

about a year later i learned about the different cylinders and i ordered a matched set of Left and right larger piston wheel cylinders these were doorman parts, except with all the other stuff going on i never installed them. I had a garage try redoing my alignment a couple of times and we cranked the right rear wheel cylinder to compensate for the pull. It never worked i just got used to it.

well driving the car more it really is a safety issue, i had worked so many problems out that it was time to go back to the rear drums and have another look.

As luck would have it since my original brake rebuild many more reproduction or re-placement parts had become available.

So i gathered all the goodies to refresh my drums.

now i had inspected the rear drums each year looking for leaks and never saw an issue.

So i took everything apart and what i found surprised me.

turned out both rear wheel cylinders had in fact been leaking pretty badly, the brake dust and slow leak had masked the problem from my visual inspections and it was not until i took everything out that i could see it was a bad leak.

the first thing i did was take apart my new wheel cylinders remove the rubber and soak them in Dot 3 for a couple hours. then put the new cylinders together(cross fingers) and reinstall the drums with some additional new replacement parts that didn't exist 8-10 years ago.

bleed the system with Dot 5 and went for a spin, marginal improvement the pull was much less but still there. now i need to keep an eye on the rear drums and now i'm focusing on the front right caliper as a possible problem. the fronts were replaced at the same time as the rears for a rebuild.

I suspect i will find a weeping leak on the caliper piston from the dot 5 as i saw on the rear wheel cylinders. Again i will try my trick of treating the seals with Dot 3 before going to dot 5.

What is the upshot of all this?

in the future on any car i do, Stainless steel brake lines will never be an option and I will not need to worry about weeping leaks caused by the stainless steel not giving and sealing correctly in the cones of the fittings.

mild lines installed correctly do not leak, thus Dot 3,4,or 5.1 would be a welcome change and keep the rubber seals from leaking, the only attraction to dot 5 is not absorbing water and not eating paint, but otherwise it just causes more issues with not swelling rubber seals correctly and giving you nagging leaks and pressure loss problems.

since my experience with Dot 5 and stainless lines has not been a good one i can tell the issues may not be resolved until i flush the system and go back to dot 3/4/5.1 however I'm still bartering hoping for a solution.

time will tell; now i never had a problem with the rears or front brakes not working, i can lock all 4 wheels but the balance was never right, and what exactly is causing the imbalance might be the slight pressure loss from weeping leaks from the dot 5 fluid.

next post will be a post operation on my front right caliper to see if it was in fact leaking, i will be replacing it with another New Reman unit and i will be treating the replacement with a dot 3 rubber seals bath before install and bleed with dot 5.

stay tuned.

 
Big thanks for sharing your unfortunate experiences.

That sounded weird but I'm sure you understand. Wishing you the best as you tackle the challenges!

Ray

 
I'm happy with using my car as a rolling experiment at this point, for example i'm playing around with different heat ranges on spark plugs to see cause and effect as well.

Things i have learned through real world experience:

(Bad things)

------------

high power ignition coils

performance type spark plugs.

performance type ignition wires.

Stainless brake lines

Dot 5 fluid.

Poly Bushings.

not having a PCV

HEI cap conversions for OEM distributors.

Edelbrock carbs (yup for various problems and tuning issues, hollys are better for certain things)

Teflon seals for valve stems(VITON only)

MSD Tach Adapter. (caused interference problems)

RediRadio adapter.

i can keep going... but its amazing when you try something and see the long term cause and effect....

 
Problem with pulling while braking will be found in the front for sure.

A couple of off the wall things to check:

Slop in the strut rod bushings

Partially frozen caliper piston

A caliper that is not sliding and therefore only one pad is contacting the rotor

Good Luck!

Paul

 
i have a list of other things to check as well.

I've been going down the list slowly.

i'm going to check the old caliper and swap it anyway, then look it over on the bench,

the strut rods are still a possible issue. i may have too much caster and the car cannot handle it.

I decided after i try a couple more things to go back to the alignment shop and see what measurements the car is holding and then make 2 changes.

one thing at a time is how it goes. parts should get here this week.

 
Good luck with your brake problem, I'm in the middle of overhauling my brakes right now. So no dot 5, good to know.

.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
pulled right front caliper, and i did not see any leaking of brake fluid. i cleaned every thing down with cleaner, pulled the caliper and inspected nothing was wet, but i noted the caliper slider bolts pins were not oiled and hard to pull out.

i reassembled the unit and greased the pins with disc brake grease.

i didn't see any visable issues with the caliper. i pulled the right rear drum again and inspected, the unit was 100% dry and i opened up the star adjuster 3 clicks.

put everything back together will test drive soon,, the reman RH caliper came and i started to prep it but i see no reason to install it at this point.

i also made an adjustment to the parking brake cable tension.

up next will be changes to alignment.

 
I'm happy with using my car as a rolling experiment at this point, for example i'm playing around with different heat ranges on spark plugs to see cause and effect as well.

Things i have learned through real world experience:

(Bad things)

------------

high power ignition coils

performance type spark plugs.

performance type ignition wires.

Stainless brake lines

Dot 5 fluid.

Poly Bushings.

not having a PCV

HEI cap conversions for OEM distributors.

Edelbrock carbs (yup for various problems and tuning issues, hollys are better for certain things)

Teflon seals for valve stems(VITON only)

MSD Tach Adapter. (caused interference problems)

RediRadio adapter.

i can keep going... but its amazing when you try something and see the long term cause and effect....
Are you referring to the braided steel brake lines that replace the old rubber ones going to the calipers? I just ordered some. What do you recommend?

 
I'm using oem rubber hose reproductions, I inspected the hose and it looked new no sign of issues.

I thought about braided but some people had kinking issues. I worked with braided fuel line and hated it so I stick with oem repop rubber hoses.

The list refers to the hard lines on the brakes.

I'm happy with using my car as a rolling experiment at this point, for example i'm playing around with different heat ranges on spark plugs to see cause and effect as well.

Things i have learned through real world experience:

(Bad things)

------------

high power ignition coils

performance type spark plugs.

performance type ignition wires.

Stainless brake lines

Dot 5 fluid.

Poly Bushings.

not having a PCV

HEI cap conversions for OEM distributors.

Edelbrock carbs (yup for various problems and tuning issues, hollys are better for certain things)

Teflon seals for valve stems(VITON only)

MSD Tach Adapter. (caused interference problems)

RediRadio adapter.

i can keep going... but its amazing when you try something and see the long term cause and effect....
Are you referring to the braided steel brake lines that replace the old rubber ones going to the calipers? I just ordered some. What do you recommend?
 
Good to know. Thanks.

I'm using oem rubber hose reproductions, I inspected the hose and it looked new no sign of issues.

I thought about braided but some people had kinking issues. I worked with braided fuel line and hated it so I stick with oem repop rubber hoses.

The list refers to the hard lines on the brakes.

I'm happy with using my car as a rolling experiment at this point, for example i'm playing around with different heat ranges on spark plugs to see cause and effect as well.

Things i have learned through real world experience:

(Bad things)

------------

high power ignition coils

performance type spark plugs.

performance type ignition wires.

Stainless brake lines

Dot 5 fluid.

Poly Bushings.

not having a PCV

HEI cap conversions for OEM distributors.

Edelbrock carbs (yup for various problems and tuning issues, hollys are better for certain things)

Teflon seals for valve stems(VITON only)

MSD Tach Adapter. (caused interference problems)

RediRadio adapter.

i can keep going... but its amazing when you try something and see the long term cause and effect....
Are you referring to the braided steel brake lines that replace the old rubber ones going to the calipers? I just ordered some. What do you recommend?
 
I'm happy with using my car as a rolling experiment at this point, for example i'm playing around with different heat ranges on spark plugs to see cause and effect as well.

Things i have learned through real world experience:

(Bad things)

------------

high power ignition coils

performance type spark plugs.

performance type ignition wires.

Stainless brake lines

Dot 5 fluid.

Poly Bushings.

not having a PCV

HEI cap conversions for OEM distributors.

Edelbrock carbs (yup for various problems and tuning issues, hollys are better for certain things)

Teflon seals for valve stems(VITON only)

MSD Tach Adapter. (caused interference problems)

RediRadio adapter.

i can keep going... but its amazing when you try something and see the long term cause and effect....
Great information, from my personal experience, I would add avoid Petronix Ignitor II, or Ignitor III and just go with the simple Ignitor if switching over, especially if you have a tach.

 
i had a PI the only difference is the Floating Dwell on the PII either unit the I or II works fine on our cars the PIII is not compatible with the factory tach but if you have a non-tach car then the PIII i suppose to be better then the I or II.

I had problems with the Flamethrower PI and PII coil, the coils leaked the cooling oil out of the top cap it happened 2 times and i ditched the Flamethrower for a MSD coil,, the MSD leaked after 4 months, so i switched to an Older Accel Coil i found on clearance at pepboys when they actually had V8 parts, have not had a problem in years.

I even got a made in china reproduction yellow cap coil and even that one worked and didn't leak but i didn't trust it long term

so i used the accel coil.

on the PI or PII i've had the magnet sleeve go bad, you can just get one of those New and it goes bad over time, so you get misfire.

with the PIII it uses a different pickup and so they don't have the same issue as the PI or PII when it goes bad.

that is why if i had a non-tach car i would of gotten a PIII instead.

years ago pertronix had a notorious problem with the magnetic pickup sleeves for the distributor it damaged the brand pretty good and everyone went to MSD or accel, or mallory for the electronic ignition systems. I even had a MSD and Tach adapter for a while running a HEI distributor, the wiring was hell under the hood, so i was glad to get rid of it all for a fresh oem distributor and cap and then a PII which i had better luck with then the PI at the time.

i keep a PI in the trunk and i have a set of points and a condenser there also :D

 
Back
Top