I have finished the extensive brake job on my 69 LeBaron Coupe this
weekend.
I replaced all of the metal lines except the one to the PS front and
the two to the master cylinder. I used two 60" lines and a 30" line to the
rear axle with two couplings. All expose lines were wrapped with 20 gage
galvanized steel line. I thought long and hard about how to do this
protective step and this worked great. Wrap on end of the line with a little
Duct tape to protect the double flair fitting. Insert that end into a
cordless drill and start wrapping the wire from the other end of the
tubing. Another piece of duct tape will hold the wire from spinning at the
start. With an assistant to control the drill you can get a very nice
looking wire wrap with a little care. A real bonus is that if you do this
well you do not need to use a tubing bender since the wire wrap
will stop any kinking of the tubing.
The new Durabrake rotors and Calipersonline calipers sure look
good. Shame that no one will see them. The rotors were out of true by
0.007" on the DS and 0.003" on the PS. Spec is 0.005"! It is interesting the
I can turn the PS hub by hand without the wheel attached, but I cannot
turn the DS hub. I checked the rotation of the hubs before the calipers
were attached and both were the same and "relatively" easy so it is due to
the calipers. Note that this was the case even before the calipers were
attached to the brake lines.
There are 25 connections in the brake system now from rear wheel
cylinder to front caliper and I have tracked down a couple which were
leaking. The brake pedal is very high and very firm. I used a Valvoline
brake fluid which claims to exceed DOT 3 and 4 and used just under 1
quart.
I did not and have never "bench bled" a master cylinder. I have always
read that you must do this but never have and always have had great brakes.
I just connect everything and bleed away. This time I did use a simple
"one man" bleeder which has a small collection bottle with a fitting
which sticks into the hole in the bleeder valves. The bottle has a
magnet on it so you can attach it to the car. Hook this up and pump away on
the brake pedal. The final bleed was with my son pumping and me opening
and closing the bleeder valves.
A trick for actually installing the calipers is to insert a piece
of flexible foam rubber between the pads after they have been
inserted into the caliper bodies as you get ready to mount the
calipers to the steering knuckles. The foam will hold the pads apart so
that you can get them over the rotor and then can easily be removed from the
top. The calipersonline calipers use two such pieces of foam to hold the
pistons in their bores.
This has
been a long and expensive experience, but my car now has brakes which are
probably better than they have ever been.
Fred Joslin
