What should I do about my brakes?

[aasukisuki]

Well fellas, my brakes are toast so I've got a repair in my future. I'm having a real struggle deciding on what I should do. I've seen the posts about doing the cobra brake swap, or buying an aftermarket kit to upgrade the size of the front discs. Additionally I've seen the kits to upgrade the backs to discs.

My long term plan with this car (you know, someday) is to just have a nice, reliable cruiser. Something producing somewhere between 200-300hp, that I can take on cross country trips, with the top down.

I certainly don't want to rely on 40-year old technology if I can spend a couple hundred bucks and upgrade the brakes.

If I do upgrade the brakes, I've heard that I'll need to get at least 17" wheels. So if I look at the larger picture of what I want to do to my car, this seems to be the right path:

New Wheels => Upgraded Brakes => Upgraded Suspension => Rebuilt/Replaced Motor & Replaced Transmission => Exhaust => Convertible Top

any advice?

 

[jbojo]

I went with Wilwood disc brakes front and rear and I can run 15 inch rims.

 

[TommyK]

If you have discs on the front already there really is no need to upgrade anything as these cars had good brakes from the factory. For how you intend to use the car I would just rebuild everything using good quality parts.

 

[aasukisuki]

Thanks for the replies.

I finally had some time to look at the brakes, and I think things are worse than just changing pads / turning rotors. I pulled the driver's side wheel of, and the pads actually look pretty good. So I popped the top off of the master cylinder and the brake fluid is nearly empty on the chamber closest to the firewall. I suspect I have a leak somewhere, but I haven't had a chance to get the car off of the ground to take a look. Any suggestions on where to start and what I should be look for?

I've attached some photos for reference

 

[matrixx]

Looks pretty clean to me. The low brake fluid is cause for concern. Check around the master cylinder itself and also inside the car on the firewall where brake petal goes through.

You should pull the rears as well an see if there's any leaks from the wheel cylinders inside the drums.

Has the car been sitting? Long periods of sitting (ex. Many years) it's not uncommon for brake fluid to be low. Typically though the brake system is a closed system and you should not loose any fluid unless your brakes are really worn, or you have a leak.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[72HCODE]

the rear larger bowl is the front disc brakes.

so you have a leak from the master to the front brakes.

now you could have a leaking master and the fluid is going into the booster, or you have bad hard or soft lines.

the front brake line goes behind the engine on the firewall, so you want to look for wet spots, missing paint(dot 3 eats paint) around the back of the engine and firewall and underneath the master, then look at the soft lines going to the calipers.

I can tell you based on the color of the brake fluid you have money you need to spend the lines are all rotted out from the inside out, that brown is rust.

replacing rebuilding what you have is cheaper and really front disc and rear drum works fine.

i would recommend going with mild brake lines and stay away from stainless steel FAR AWAY... use Dot 3 or 4 on refill not dot 5

calipers can be rebuilt, the hardlines and soft can be replaced, and you can flush the system really good.

however because of the amount of contamination of the fluid you will need to replace all hard lines, that includes the intermediary line and the hardline on the axle.

parts min your looking at all hard lines about 130$

front calipers about 70$ a side a rebuild is about 15$ a side.

soft lines will run.

about 35$ per side in the front and rear about 40$

rear calipers about 12$ a side. drum rebuilds about 14$ a side

so without pads your looking at 422$ to get started, then figure another 100$ for misc and pads etc.

so you need to budget 500-600$ to rebuild what you have.

a disc conversion kit will run about 1400$ to start but that assumes your hardlines are a good starting point which they are not.

restoring your system isn't hard but the line behind the engine and that runs under the car(intermediary) is like playing a game of tetris and it is easier with the engine out of the car, plus you have an excuse to clean up the engine bay and paint it check for rust and other bad things.

for comparison

this is my car before i rebuilt the brake system,, this is new fluid i flushed through the system and then i went for one drive i came back and it looked like this, it was clear when i left the garage to start



and yes my car had the incorrect master on it originally.


you know i was really looking at your photo.



hummmmm

 

[MotoArts]

i would recommend going with mild brake lines and stay away from stainless steel FAR AWAY...

Why would you not recommend stainless?

I am currently redoing my brake system and contemplating new lines as well.

 

[zaxwax]

i would recommend going with mild brake lines and stay away from stainless steel FAR AWAY...

Why would you not recommend stainless?

I am currently redoing my brake system and contemplating new lines as well.

I'm in the middle of a brake rebuild as well and I got some stainless lines before I found out that they're harder than normal steel and so they don't deform and mate/seal easily. Fortunately mine went on ok and don't leak. For the rears though I just bought the normal steel ones.

I did replace the rubber hoses with braided stainless lines from cjponyparts. We only have the front ones in so far but I was surprised that they actually made a tangible difference in brake feel. My hoses might have been pretty old so your mileage my vary. They aren't terribly expensive.

I haven't installed it yet but I bought an SSBC short stop kit on amazon for $200. It's got slotted rotors and performance pads and seems well reviewed on other cars. Compared to all the other kits it seems a bargain. The tricky part about new rotors is that on our cars, the rotor doesn't simply unbolt. You have to pull the bearings. So if you're going to change a rotor you might as well do new timkin bearings and a new seal while you're in there. (someone correct me if I'm wrong on this)

Something Jeff73mach1 suggested to me as well is the use of speed bleeders on the calipers. They have a valve in them that allows you to bleed the brakes with just one person. I think mine were from russel. They do work quite nicely. They're not expensive.

In my limited experience, once you start to mate up new parts with old parts and you break loose some of the things that have been sealed for 40 years, they are impossible to seal back up again. That's how I started out replacing the hoses with stainless braided lines and now have a complete brake system laid out in my garage waiting to be installed. Cjpony parts has most of the stuff although I found the short stop kit was cheaper at amazon. Brakes and suspension are areas that I don't mind spending money on because in the event that you need them it is money well spent and infinitely cheaper than rebuilding a wrecked car or hospital bills.

Best of luck with your rebuild.

 

[72HCODE]

I've posted a few times with my experience with stainless hard lines.

Stainless does not give when you tighten the fittings down and requires more pressure then usual to seat.

this results in deformation of the seals for the brake components and can damage these parts for future service. usually the sealing is not 100% and thus you can have a weeping leak, a seal may appear seated but under boiling or heavy braking they may in fact leak.

reproduction mild steel lines are galvanized and do not rust like OEM brake lines did. the only benefit of stainless is corrosion protection. however your classic car is usually not a daily driver and will not be used in the winter with salt on the roads. plus reproduction lines are protected now so there is zero benefit to stainless hose use outside of a track car where you may want the extra stiffness of stainless.

soft lines are a different story braided stainless over the soft line will harden them up. however a new replacement soft rubber line will be very solid compared to an original 40 year old line.

i have stainless brake lines on my car and i do not recommend them. If i had to do it all over again i would of just gotten mild steel lines with galvanized coating on them worst 10$ i ever spent for the upgrade.

 

[InjectedMach]

.....

 

[MotoArts]

Cool, thanks for the input guys.

Never did consider the increased hardness of the SS affecting the flare.

Talked me right out of those, and quick .

I guess growing up in the northeast kinda programs us for "rust prevention first", to the point of being obsessive about it.

The shame of my OE lines is that I left them disconnected from the master, outside in the driveway, for a few years. I'm positive that crud/spiders/rust is inside of them. Otherwise, they are absolutely 100% with no rust, dings, bends or external warning flags (it's a VA car).

Shame on me, the big dummy.

I've used braided hoses on my roadrace motorcycles back in the day, with good results. Good, as in no problems. I do plan on using them on my '71.

 

[Justin71]

That is great input on the stainless lines. Experience is the best teacher and that's why folks like 72Hcode are such a valuable resource to folks on this forum.

I had one more question related to that advice tho. I'm wondering why hard lines need to be replaced just because the fluid is contaminated?

Main reason I ask is I just rebuilt everything stock on my system and I maintained the original steel lines. I completely removed them from the car, and reconditioned the outside and used solvent to clean out the lines. I then properly blew and dried them out, and once re-installed I bled the system "excessively", in order to flow any more contaminants out of the system. I now get really clear nice fluid and I have good pedal.

Am I in for a surprise down the road that I wasn't thinking about by cleaning and reusing the lines?

Thanks!

Jay

 

[InjectedMach]

I have a little input but I m not sure its a direction you want to take. First off if you have a 9" rear I would convert to the explorer rear disc setup which is available from currie enterprises for about $120+- per side. You will need rotors and calipers and pads. Check your local parts place as rockauto tends to screw you on the shipping to make up for lower part prices I've noticed. If you have a 9" rear end the axle flange is .062 per side(front to back) smaller than the bolt holes in the explorer. Use a die grinder and deburr the 1/16" out of the backing plate and it will bolt up directly with no further modification as the vertical measurement is the same on both systems so its self centering once you elongate the slots in the backing plate .062" on the back of the front hole and the front of the back hole.

You will need to join the parking brake cables at the back or buy the cable kit - I joined mine with crimp style ferrules form ace hardware. The explorer uses a drum style parking brake under the rotor "hat"(hub) and is very effective.

I would just rebuild the front brakes stock and use steel lines as so many have pointed out the ss looks cool but CAN be a major pain to stop leaks or adjust if not properly made(that never happens right)

Finally I would change to a 2000 V6 mustang or 2000 8 cyl Explorer MC. Its aluminum with a clear res. and the fluid will stay clean for years and the pedal will be firm and it will stop incredibly smooth and fast. The stock proportioning is perfect and most 15" magnums will still fit, some of the calipers are shaped funny and may hit but you can shop different part stores and find that some are of different design but for the same app.

Lotta work but not too much really, 4-500 total versus 700-1000 for "kits" that leave you with a spongy pedal because of your mc not being for rear disc and using the caliper for park brake, or a rock hard pedal you have to use both feet and arms because they send you a 1.25" bore mc which moves tons of fluid but builds no pressure leaving you with legs of steel. Take a wild guess of why I know this....

It sounds like a long deal but you can do it in one day if you set your mind to it. I can do this in only a few hours but I have done several, first time was much slower though. Good luck no matter which route you choose

joe

If you are rebuilding and want to improve your car this is a proven route that I do - alot(with amazing results)

 

[Mesozoic]

I'm in the same boat with InjectedMach in that I don't really see a need to spend any money upgrading the front factory disc brakes, but any good rear disc brake conversion kit is worthwhile. My car has always stopped incredibly well using the stock brake system.

I ended up going with a Vintage Venom retrofit kit for the rear disc brakes because I didn't know about the Explorer swap. EIther way, I'm glad I have Ford rear disc brakes. I've used stainless steel braided hoses on my late model 5.0 Mustang, but haven't on my '71 and don't see a need. I would expect improved brake pedal feel if replacing all the soft lines with the stainless, though.

 

[72HCODE]

sorry i missed this question way back when.

"I had one more question related to that advice tho. I'm wondering why hard lines need to be replaced just because the fluid is contaminated? "

the hard lines rust from the inside out. the Brown color of the fluid is from rust mixing with the brake fluid.

if you flush the system, within a couple hours of road use the fluid will turn brown again and the fluid will be contaminated again. it can effect Seals because it acts as an abrasive. so you spend 500$ on a brake repair and have leaking seals a couple of weeks later. or it starts to build up junk in the prop valve and master, you get a sludge forming.

that and if the hard lines are in bad shape then the soft lines and axle lines are going to be in bad shape too.

better clean the entire system out and replace parts so that the repair lasts another 20 years and not 2 weeks.

 

[InjectedMach]

I guess its not a bad idea to change all the lines but "typically" the contamination is from the uncoated cast iron mc and calipers themselves however there is also a chance the lines can contribute to this if they have begun to corrode as well,...great point!

 

[mdunlap]

If you have discs on the front already there really is no need to upgrade anything as these cars had good brakes from the factory. For how you intend to use the car I would just rebuild everything using good quality parts.

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