For a while now the red car has been a little less than enjoyable to drive. Well that is not entirely true. Don’t get me wrong, it was still cooler than say a coupe or anything after 1971 and far better than a non-V8 (be still my pets this is only the second sentence) but the brakes were less than good.
She starts well, idles like a Tesla, goes pretty hard but the stopping is a little unsettling. When the stop pedal is needed, she has a nasty habit of pulling right just enough to scare you before engaging the left side and pulling up straight. Not an issue on long drives but rather disconcerting around town.
Now, way back when Mark and Marg had Capital Classics, I knew I was going to refurb the brakes when I had time. Marg fixed me up (Mark was eating three dim sims with salt as I recall) with the caliper seal kits, upper control arms (as I only replaced the lower ones looong ago) and reversing light lenses; not relevant here but for the sack of completeness. I had swapped out the lower control arms when I first bought the car way back when.
Enter a three year build on the Holdon and a few other complications along the way and I was now ready. Car jacked up on stands, wheels whipped off with my new mag wheel sockets courtesy of 60% off sale at supercheap and I was away.
Removed the brake fail sensor thingy in the distribution block and installed the locking pin thingy. Brake hose clamps installed and stainless wire ties removed. Cracked the master cylinder and was confronted with this
Now, I am no brake technician but ooze in there it not a ‘good thing’. This might get interesting.
This is how the drivers side assembly looked. Nothing too bad just in need of some lovin’
Calipers unbolted, only two bolts hold the thing on- but they are big bolts. Calipers are the Kelsey Hayes single piston type. They have what appears to be 317 – KH stamped into the shoulder of the sliding plate
Not unexpectedly but worryingly, I could not compress the piston from either caliper. This was telling me that getting the pistons out was going to be ‘interesting’.
I decided to work on one unit and keep the other as a reference.
Drivers side:
The pads come out by removing the spring clips that hold pins in place through the non-piston side. The other pad is held in place by spring clips that hold it via tangs to the piston face.
Compressed air liberated this piston no worries
Bit of mud and yuck on the pistons but no wear or pitting to the bore
Cone of death time and this cleaned up. Got a shard from that thing stuck in my leg that I did not notice until the next morning- 10mm long!
Here is how the bore and piston cleaned up
And here is the Kelsey Hayes piston ready for another 50 years.
New seal and boot installed and piston carefully eased back home. Here is the old and new
The other side was similar but a bit more difficult. Had a job to get that piston out but she eventually succumbed. It would only move slightly, hence the sudden clamp and pull to one side I was experiencing. Like the other side, other than some crap that cleaned off with a scotchbrite pad, they were in great shape. New seals and boot installed and the piston slid home again.
Next challenge came finding the right pads. Big Mc helped here to confirm the Bendix S776 (same as on the X series falcons) are the same as the original pads. But these do not use the pin and spring clip, instead using the single spring wire clip into a hook cast into the metal backing plate. I actually drilled the new pads to accept the original pins to retain that original look.
Here they are both cleaned:
And while the car was sitting on stands, I used JBB’s spring compressors to help swap out the upper control arms on both sides. Remember I changed the lowers way back when.
And then it was time to reinstall the master cylinder and let the new fluid run through. Bummer, she was not flowing on the drivers side. Disconnected this from the distribution block and removed from the car. Compressed air confirmed we had a blockage. This is the original flexible hose as it has the Ford logo and part number stamped into the brass end; read it was important to retain if I could.
Wire, compressed air and WD40 still could not get that thing to flow. A call to JBB was enough to convince me to try again with stronger wire. Another hour of trying and I was getting somewhere. I eventually was able to thread some thin stainless wire through the length of the hose sufficient to move it and clean out the crap inside. My hose was now flowing again!
Next day and time to reinstall everything and check flow. My now rejuvenated hose was flowing well as was the passenger side. Reconnected everything back up and decided to bleed the rears, just to clean any crap out of those lines. Lucky I did as a bit of crap came out from both sides before the new blue fluid flowed.
Back on the ground and time for a test drive. Brakes work like a champ with no hint of pulling/grabbing to one side under soft and hard braking. Got to love that! The car is a joy, once again, to drive.
Thanks to JBB and Big Mc.
