Re: A Beautiful Thing! What? No Paint? I have the same picture of when I did mine. Now I wish I took the time to paint the calipers and centers. Every time I look at the wheels all I see is the surface rust. I'm planning on pulling them apart and giving them the treatment during hibernation. I wish I shot them with some clear. ou:
So far the kit is fully installed except for bleeding. As a whole I am satisfied with the kit and has met all of my expectations. There are two deficiencies with this kit that I have found so far and one footnote. Deficiencies: 1.) The drivers side brake line is ill-conceived. The line would have to go through the upper control arm to be used. I am not sure what they were thinking there. I have custom bent a new one. Pretty easy fix, but still a deficiency. 2.) There was no master cylinder bleeder kit included. In fact the instructions do not even mention the process. It merely says to bleed the system after all components are installed. Weird. I have never installed a master in my life without the bleeding process. Has the world of brakes changed in my 6 year hiatus? Note: The rotor are new straight and true but the casting has tons of flash and is very rough. All of the important surfaces are machined so I will speculate that this is of no functional consequence, but still about the roughest casting I have ever seen. I am anxious to bleed the system and drive the Lark this weekend! I love the car and it drives fantastic, but man the car just didn't stop. I bet it is going to be pure pleasure with the new disc brakes.
Just be careful and take it easy when you first take it out. After the swap on my 68 from manual drums to disc, I was constantly putting my face into the windshield. It took a while to get used to the increased stopping ability. ou:
I just took here around the block and it now only takes 1 foot to stop the car:beer A few things that I noticed. Since installing the front brakes and new booster/master set up, the left rear wheel cylinder now appears to be leaking ou: I have all new stuff for the rears, I just wasn't ready to do it yet. I guess she is ready now. LOL Also, during the brake install, I also rebuilt the front end. The car now seems to sit at least an inch higher in the front. Not really sure what that is about. Lastly, it feels to me like the master cylinder is not getting enough vacuum. I currently have it plumbed from the vacuum port on one of the passenger side rear intake manifold runners. I suspect there is some pulsation in there and I might try a vacuum source from the plenum.
Brake booster to master push rod - new lesson. The last adventure with my Skylarks disc brake conversion was today. After the completion of my conversion, one of the things that I noticed was that the pedal was kind of hard. More like manual brakes than power. I checked vacuum and adjusted some things of that sort with only a modest improvement. Then after a short drive of about 5 miles, my front brakes started to drag and get hot. Worried that the new parts might be damaged, I towed the car home. After calling friend who who has done many of these, he told me right away what he thought it was. He said that a lot of these disc brake conversion kits do not get the brake power booster/master cylinder push-rod length just right. When he said it, I immediately remembered being bothered by the master cylinder installation because the nuts had to be tightened to fully seat the master cylinder. Now I know why. He suspected mine was too long. He told me to shorten it so that there was just about .050" clearance. This morning I shortened the rod .160" to allow for the recommended clearance. Immediately, the brake booster was very powerful and the pedal was the way I remember these cars being. Now the pedal is easy to push and response is very strong. Problem solved. So, with the few shortcomings of the kit, this was the only one that really is a problem in my opinion. The reason I say this is because the shortening of this rod is not a simple hack and go process. You must have a system to determine the correct length and the ability to cut it and grind it to the proper radius and finish that is perfectly round and smooth. While anyone could do if careful and thoughtful, it is not something your average guy should be expected to tackle on a kit of this nature. Regardless, the kit is now completely done and the brakes work great. I am a happy camper:beer
