1955 Ranch Wagon Cruiser

[DJ3100]

After 3 internal slaves on my 33 Pontiac and 2 on Jacky's 51, I finally got one to stay.
On Peabody's, I used a external slave and master for a S10, tada !!!!!
Never again will I use an internal.

Thanks Old Iron, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who had problems with them.

Fired it up this morning and the clutch seems to working OK. But, still have a brake issue. The right rear parking brake isn't tight enough, but there may be something else going on as well.

It seems like there is an electrical gremlin - get too big a spark when hooking up the battery and chattering coming from the ac/heat unit. Checked everything and have a .02 amp draw when nothing is on. Probably not excessive for the ecm and clock.

 

[DJ3100]

Got that right rear caliper/parking brake adjusted per CPP instructions, I think. Have more pedal, but couldn't bring myself to take another brake fluid bath. So that's all I worked on.

 

[earthman]

Fantastic. Just too much grief. Getting close to that first drive now. [P

 

[DJ3100]

Fantastic. Just too much grief. Getting close to that first drive now. [P

Yeah, too much grief. I'm having a difficult time motivating myself to work on the brakes again.

I feel like I have been close to a drive since May. Now, I'm hoping for a drive this weekend.

 

[DJ3100]

Had a lot of noise coming from the front of the engine. Tracked it down to th tensioner pulley. Replaces it and solved the problem - finally an easy fix that actually worked.

The extra spark from connecting the battery was probably the AC unit looking for the door position on start up. Anyhow - pulled that AC fuse and that problem went away.

Now I'm back to the brakes. I have a good pedal with the engine off and all the calipers lock up. When I start the engine the pedal goes to the floor and no brakes. Must be something in the booster, but I haven't found anything that even gives that as a possible result when troubleshooting.

 

[DJ3100]

The answers I got from the Brake tech Q and A solved the brake issue. Basically with the engine running, the calipers lock up with about 1" +- of pedal travel.

Put it back on the ground, cleared everything out of the way ready for the first drive. Couldn't get it in gear. The clutch is not releasing (I hope that is the problem). I need to measure the slave travel and do some calculations.

Either there is air in the line keeping the slave from reaching full travel or I need to change the diameter of the master or slave to get it to move further. I really thought I had it working.

 

[I-R-POPS]

Dang it! That is enough to make a decent man cuss!
Hope you get it figured out. It's not to late to put a AOD trans. in.

 

[DJ3100]

Dang it! That is enough to make a decent man cuss!
Hope you get it figured out. It's not to late to put a AOD trans. in.

At this point I think I'm all cussed out. It IS getting pretty hard to face another round of fixing the same thing I have been fixing for 6 weeks.

The AOD thought crossed my mind, but my hot rods always need to have a stick.

 

[I-R-POPS]

The AOD thought crossed my mind, but my hot rods always need to have a stick.

I used to have that same way of thinking untill the bad knees took over.

Don't weaken. You'll get it on the road then you can forget all the bad things that are happening.

 

[Old Iron]

I had the same problem with Peabody's 37 and I found, I had not pushed the slave's push rod all the way in before mounting it and the bracket to the engine.
The amount of travel is crucial because of the master cylinders piston travel and available fluid volume.
Hope that helps.

 

[DJ3100]

Attitude Adjuster

Had the wife push on the clutch pedal while I was under measuring the slave travel. On the second push the slave moved an additional 1/4". So, air in the system.

Fired it up, pumped the clutch a couple times and drove it to the end of the driveway and back!

Brakes stopped the car, but the pedal has no resistance until it's about 1" from the floor - very spooky. There is probably air in the brake lines, too.

The slave is an easy bleed. Pull a vacuum on the master, take the slave off the bracket and turn it until any possible trapped air is pulled out.

The brakes - not sure what else to do. But at least now I'm pumped up to get it done.

 

[I-R-POPS]

You might give this a try. Don't laugh at it, it works great and gets all the air out of a system quickly and cleanly. $5 at NAPA.

 

[Torchie]

[cl [cl [cl [cl
Glad to hear you are pumped up again.
That first drive (No matter how short or far) will do that to you.
[P [P
Torchie

 

[Old Iron]

[cl[cl[cl

 

[DJ3100]

Thanks for sticking with me, guys. The last several months have been pretty boring and many of my posts got pretty whiny.

Had a nasty rattle at a certain RPM, sounded like it was coming from the AC. Son-in-law helped me chase it down last night (his hearing is still intact). It was a loose bolt on the fender. Easy fix.

The best part (after having it move on it's own) is that I got it turned around. Now I can see the front of the car and at least think about building the grille.

 

[Old Iron]

Looks great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A loose bolt on the fender is better than a loose nut behind the wheel [ddd

 

[Torchie]

Looks great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A loose bolt on the fender is better than a loose nut behind the wheel [ddd

^^^^^X's 2 ^^^^
And me and OI know all about looses nuts behind the wheel.[ddd
Are you going with the stock grill DJ ?
Torchie

 

[hansgoudzwaard]

Huge effort by you. Thanks for posting , we benefited.

 

[DJ3100]

^^^^^X's 2 ^^^^
And me and OI know all about looses nuts behind the wheel.[ddd
Are you going with the stock grill DJ ?
Torchie

I got a quote on chroming the stock grill - $435 per side + $40 for the center piece. The stock grill is not very impressive and certainly not worth $910 to me. So, my plan is to make a stainless tube grill that goes into the original parking light buckets. With the car facing the other way and those doors closed I couldn't get far enough away to see what it looked like.

Huge effort by you. Thanks for posting , we benefited.

Thanks for the feedback. What year is that Merc? If the Ford had a grill like that I'd be chroming it and sticking with it.

 

[hansgoudzwaard]

Meteor Country Squire