Wilwood brake kit wil-140-13477 from summit. Review/install

[Jeff73Mach1]

As long as the brake line sits in a safe position throughout the range of travel and suspension movement and the bleeder valve is at the top of the caliper, front or rear positioning is fairly unimportant.

 

[jowens1126]

There are no line clearance issues at all. With the calipers mounted on the front side of the rotor, both ends of the caliper line are in front of all the suspension. Forgive my bent up lines, but it was unavoidable. I am going to replace them with disc lines eventually.

 

[jowens1126]

We finally got the master off and the 2 studs off that hold the brake pedal bracket on. One stud came off with the lock nut that was on it. The other stud wasnt so lucky. The nut came off leaving the stud in place. I ended up having to get 2 skinny nuts and tighten them against each other and back it out with a wrench on the inside nut. Once it broke free it came right out without any trouble.

It should be free, but its completely stuck in place like its still bolted.  I hit the side of the pedal a few times with the hammer and nothing moved at all.

Im pretty sure there is nothing else holding it on.

I suppose my next course of action is to get a pry bar up under the edge of the bracket and try to break it loose.

Once that is off, I will drill out the firewall holes and the holes on the brake pedal bracket to 7/16".  Then the new booster studs will go right on thru the firewall and the pedal bracket and I can bolt it all back in place.

I need to remove that cover plate as well.  I should be able to use it as a template for my Booster firewall gasket..

 

[jowens1126]

ok, I was looking thru some other pictures and I think I have found the problem. It looks like the rearward part of the bracket is bolted in to the dash. Im going to have to get some better pictures of that area and see what else I need to do.

I hope its not going to be impossible to get to without removing the steering column.

 

[Hemikiller]

You can drill the threads in place, no need to remove the bracket. Just run a 7/16" drill through all four holes, swap your pedal over and you're done.

 

[jowens1126]

@hemikiller

Well, I still need to remove the cover plate that covers the hole where the booster goes thru.

I suppose I could break out the sawzall and just hack the hole bigger.

 

[Don C]

In your posting from 2:34 yesterday, in the first 3 pictures, you'll see the head of a bolt partly covered up by the firewall pad, that has to come out, also.

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

Awesome kit, but I thought all the 71-73 mustangs came with front disk brakes. My 73 had front disk brakes from the factory

The disc brakes were an option for sure. I think they advertised that the drum brake cars got 1 mpg better mileage. The drag on the disc brakes takes away mileage where the drum shows pull back. 

I sold the PDB set up off a parts car I have to local guy. He had been looking for years for one.

The brake pedal is different, spindles, master cylinder on PDB is 15/16" and manual is 1" dia.. Of course you need the booster and proportioning valve and lines are different. 

When the NASCAR racers go out to qualify then push the pistons back on the disc brakes and the driver does not touch the brakes until he is ready to come in from qualifying. They go a little faster without the brake pads dragging on the rotors.

 

[Hemikiller]

In your posting from 2:34 yesterday, in the first 3 pictures, you'll see the head of a bolt partly covered up by the firewall pad, that has to come out, also.

As Don noted, this screw and the one on the other side. You should them be able to get the plate out. It's been a while, like since 1996, but I think there is also a knockout on the firewall you need to remove, but like I said, it's been a while.

If you are still going to remove the support, there are the bolts on the column, and one in between the main gauges on the dash frame. 

 

[jowens1126]

I'll be back on it this weekend, maybe I can make some progress. I'm wondering if I can get that plate out without removing the bracket. If not, I think were gonna try unbolting the steering column and dropping it down to access the bolt that holds the pedal bracket on. I would prefer to remove it so I can blast and paint it while its out.

 

[jowens1126]

we looked at it all yesterday evening in the dark, and I think we have decided to just sawzall the plate out and drill out the bracket and swap pedals in place. So my son is going to work on that a little today hopefully. then im hoping we can finish up this weekend.

 

[jowens1126]

I was tied up all weekend but we did manage to get a couple of things done. We got the old pedal out, drilled out the bracket and sawzalled the cover plate. Then we test fitted the booster then ran out of daylight. Hopefully we can get the booster bolted on and the pedal hooked back up tonight. I need to bring the master cylinder up here to work so I can bench bleed it. Then it will be ready to bolt in.

Should be on the road this weekend.

 

[nailpounder]

the car wont stop well un tell you bed the pads

 

[jowens1126]

We tried just trimming out the plate between the booster bracket and the firewall but we ran in to this....



As you can see the bolts on the booster are not long enough with the 2 spacer plates. So were trying to cut away the rubber insulation in order to access the spacer plates.

I think the one i labeled spacer 2 is a shim of some sort.

The other one is the block off plate for the manual booster. They are both rusted in place.

If we can cut out and remove the rubber insulation, then we should be able to have access to pull the spacer shim and block off plate out.

There is also a fairly thick paper gasket I made for the engine side of the booster. I may have to remove that and use a bit of silicone.

It would be simple to remove if I could get the bracket out, but im not going to disassemble all that shit unless its absolutely necessary.

Any Ideas?

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

Those metal plates are there for a reason. To prevent the firewall from flexing and generating stress cracks. What is the issue you are having? Will back up on the post and see if I see what is up. 

We use to stamp the reinforcement plates for some of the Fords and I kept a stack of them in case I needed for a street rod build.

 

[jowens1126]

I think we will be fine now. A bit of grinding gave some more clearance. I'm going to ditch the booster gasket and use permatex.

The big issue is the bracket is about 1/16-1/8" from the firewall. The built in nut on the bracket that was drilled out left 1/4" ring around each hole. We had to grind it down flush. I should be able to get the top studs to grab a thread, then that will pull the bracket back flush with the firewall and allow the bottom bolts to catch a thread to get them started.

It's just very difficult to get in there to grind those holes flush. Theres no room down there.

 

[jowens1126]

We got the booster in today! The whole problem was the brake lines aren't secured to the firewall and were in the way. I feel stupid now because my son said that was the problem. We couldn't get the clips to stay on. They fell off going down the road, so I need to order some new clips and drill new holes for the screws.

Now I need to pick up new master cylinder lines because they are different. Then bench bleed the master at work tomorrow. Then we should have brakes!.

 

[jowens1126]

I went ahead and bench bled the master cylinder tonight.

I have a question. 

On my drum car, the rear chamber was for the front circuit and the front chamber was for the rear.

I have a disc master like this....



And I was wondering if its still the same way, front for rear, rear for front.

 

[Don C]

Yes, it will. The larger chamber is for the discs, because the calipers require more brake fluid volume than the self adjusting rear brakes. As the front pads wear the caliper pistons move out further to compensate for the wear, requiring more fluid. Because the rear brakes are self adjusting the wheel cylinders always use approximately the same volume of fluid.

 

[jowens1126]

Thanks for the quick response Don!  Your awesome as usual.

Heres another questions for you.

Looking thru the brake booster instructions, Found this diagram about the pedal.  I dont know if this is accurate for a 71 though.  In a 71 I think it goes in the same hole as the manual drum pedal.  If im wrong let me know.



Another question is, how do I adjust the rod on the brake booster that engages the master?  Do I adjust it so theres the rod contacts the plunger in the master when the pedal is at rest?



looking at the above diagram, setting the rod length on the booster to 24mm past the mounting position should put the rod in full engagement.

Heres a pic of the booster rod adjustment.