On the subject of brake upgrades

[Eric Sturgis <ericsturgis@xxxxxxxxx>]

All the talk of brakes and me looking up info for others reminded me of some sound advice I received and I would like to pass on. 

 

When I was doing my conversion to disk brakes and I was at Williams Oil Filter Service Company having my brake lines made I ran into an old guy, must have been 70 if he was a day.  He asked me what I was doing and what I was working on.  I was happy to tell him what I was doing, how I was doing it and where I was in the process.  I love talking with old car guys, most of them have done it all before on one car or another.  Anyway he liked the kit that I had bought, said it looked really good but it was missing one part that will save my life or somebody elses. 

 

He told me that the brass distribution block on the front of my car was just a block and open inside, meaning no valves.  He said that was fine in it's day but to convert the car to disk brakes I would need a different kind of Distribution Block.  He told me about the ones for Ford as that is his favorite car to play with but he said Chrysler used the same thing.  He told me to get one from a disk/drum car and put it in my car so that if I have a failure at one wheel the whole system will not be compromised like the single master cylinder cars are.  He told me that just putting on a duel Master Cylinder is not enough and the pedal can still go to the floor if I don't ad this device.  He said this is only for when you convert from drum/drum to disk/drum.
 

I'm sure I've not explained this well, so here is a better explanation

The proportioning valve/distribution block when there is a leak has a valve piston that move to the weak side (say it flips to the rear where it's leaking) In this mode, a slight amount of fluid will still pass and cause the brake peddle to slowly drop, but will prevent a large quantity of fluid from flowing to the rear brakes causing massive fluid loss. This is part of the proportioning valves job, it prevents a total loss of braking in the event one side of the system fails. It also provides metering or "leveling" of the braking system. 




 

I spoke with the people at InlineTube.com about this and they aggree with the man I met that day.  This is a link to what they said I should order for my car to make it like modern cars.  http://inlinetube.com/Prop%20Valves/pro_valves.htm   call Inline Tube sales: (586) 532-1338 they were very nice and very helpful in getting the right part to do what I needed to do.

 

I'm sure others know much more about this than I do.  But it is worth researching and chekcing out for people doing a disk brake conversion. 

 

Eric

Tacoma, WA

1962 Chrysler Newport 2 door HT

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