IML: Just a Little More Ranting...

["Ken & Tracie" <ktjosephson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Kenyon and others rightly suggest that a properly working stock system
> (brakes in particular) is acceptable and a swap to discs is not a cure all
> for problems like rusty lines and swollen 40 year old flex hoses.

Rob,

I replaced everything on the '59's brake system and redid it completely 
stock. Had a retired Chrysler mechanic work with me as I had only serviced 
Bendix brakes prior to this car. New lines, hoses, cylinders, front wheel 
bearings, hardware, etc. Seems all I retained were the backing plates and 
two of the drums. The brakes worked well enough, but seemed to need constant 
adjustment. The car's stopping distance was adequate. It never got longer. 
But the metropolitan area doubled in population in a decade and a half. All 
those new cars stopped faster. Much faster, And many of them saw my safe 
stopping distance as a nice gap to fly into with their CRX, Fiero, Civic, 
Trans Am, Accord, etc. and jam on their brakes. I must be a lousy driver for 
trying to leave all that room in front of me to stop safely. And the longer 
distance I gave myself to avoid this, the more it seemed to happen.

What do they think? Perhaps, "Old car, therefore old driver...must 
accelerate just as slowly and can't see. Better get in front of him. Even if 
he rear-ends me." :-)

The percentage of traffic officers on the streets  has dropped to critical 
levels.

All I know is now the '59 stops in a shorter distance and stops more 
controllably when my poor driving causing the wonderful, considerate, 
superior driver in the next lane to suddenly cut in front of me and slow 
down as he/she looks for a way to cut in front of the other lousy driver in 
the lane on the other side of me or cut off the person to the right of me 
who was already turning into the same driveway the superior driver is aiming 
at.

I see and hear truck drivers activating their exhaust brakes or desperately 
downshifting when their stopping distance gets invaded as they are in their 
"final approach" to a red light. Always because some jerk/jerkette has just 
cut them off to be first off the line or a couple more car lengths ahead. 
Geez, who let all those truck drivers on the road if they drive so poorly?

Maybe I'm not understanding the rest of you. I'm sure an older Imperial's 
brakes were the best Chrysler engineers could design at the time. They would 
have to be in 5,000 pound plus vehicles. But if newer cars are designed with 
increasingly shorter stopping distances and enough people fail to heed the 
advice to not "drive with your brakes" and depend upon their newer vehicles' 
vastly superior braking characteristics to get them out of the "jams" they 
routinely get themselves into, then perhaps it's best not to drive my 
Imperial daily.

But I believe it is equally foolish to install R-134a into an A/C system 
designed for R-12 after seeing the consequences of system hoses (including 
new hoses designed for R-12) explode and destroy somebody's eyesight as well 
as scar their helper's face and chest. If we're all supposed to be for one 
hundred percent original, why are some of you who are getting on my case for 
changing my braking system some of the same people who defend installing 
R-134a into a system designed for R-12 when many A/C experts recommend 
changing the hoses to those designed to work with R-134a? Didn't the 
engineers at Air Temp design our cars' air conditioning to use R-12? ;-)

Okay, I'm done ranting.

K. 




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