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Conversion to Power Brakes

Joel Talka

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Hi Guys;

Another question regarding my 66 Coronet. When I bought the car someone had converted it to manual disc brakes up front, leaving the drums in the rear. I did not drive the car all that much before the teardown but what I can say is that the brakes were basically non-existant! There was a hard pedal but no real stopping power. The calipers up front are single piston sliders, which seem pretty common as I look at stuff online.

I bought a master cylinder/booster/proportioning valve unit from Classic Performance Products thru YearOne. This unit is supposed to be for a disc/drum setup.

The question is..other than fitting that CPP unit in place of the existing master cylinder and proportioning valve, and figuring out the lines, is there anything else I need to do? I want to clean up the calipers (covered in undercoating) and rebuild them...are these parts available?

Any other words of wisdom to pull this off are more than welcome...

Thanks,

Joel
 
The master/booster should be a basic bolt in if it included the prop valve. Only thing you may have to do is re route some of your brake lines.

If you have single piston calipers on the vehicle now they are more than like based off the 73-76 A body disc brakes. Most if not all the parts (Calipers, rotors and pads) should be readily available through your local parts stores.

James From
PST
 
In a stock system, the power/manual brake pedal assemblies are different.
 
Having been through conversion to power & front disks to toss some things out that may or may not helpful: The brake pedal ratio is different btw power and manual brakes, there is a tolerance for the booster rod to MC to be aware of, when adjusting the pedal make sure there is a tidbit of ‘free play’ when the pedal sets in the home position (not being locked up against the brake light switch) as this can charge or purge the booster. Another issue I had was the depth of the piston plunge into the MC (much longer story that shouldn’t be an issue; but was with mine as the kit I installed wasn’t exactly correct for my car). Check the rear drums/brakes for their condition/operation. In my case my drums were maxed out and had an issue with one of the self-adjusters being just off the star for some dang reason and required installing new hardware to solve that hassle. Check the rubber line and T-block (mine was gunked up and was time to replace the line). Lol, longer story yet; but ended up getting a new MC and booster as I found I couldn’t bleed one reservoir on the MC I got with the kit after half a dozen tries. Elementary but make sure the caliper guides and pads are nicely deburred and lubricated and operate well (no binding) having a helper depress and release the brakes watching this action.

Too much info perhaps you might already know – but ya asked.
 
The master/booster should be a basic bolt in if it included the prop valve. Only thing you may have to do is re route some of your brake lines.

If you have single piston calipers on the vehicle now they are more than like based off the 73-76 A body disc brakes. Most if not all the parts (Calipers, rotors and pads) should be readily available through your local parts stores.

James From
PST
Hi James, Thanks much!!
 
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