<VV> more brakes: question

[kenpepke at juno.com]

I agree with Tony.  Failure of the braking system on the front axle will leave any car with the stopping power of an early Model T or like driving with the hand brake ... but  you will be able to stop with the dual master cylinder system.  If you have ever had a total brake failure and the brake pedal goes straight to the floor it feels like the car jumps ahead because the driver is expecting to stop!  On early Corvairs our main concern is the loss of the REAR brakes due to an axle bearing failure.  The dual master cylinder should stop the vehicle quite well on only the front brakes.  An early without a dual master cylinder will have NO way of stopping at all, short of waiting for rolling drag to wear off the speed or hitting something! 

The key is of course, getting they system right in the first place.  Getting the shoe adjustment right, pressure bleed the system [pumping the pedal will not do a complete job on the rear brakes with a dual master cylinder] and assuring pressure to the rear axle will make the system functional.    

Still, like Tony said, failure of the front axle brakes will leave one feeling like they have almost no brakes at all.
Ken P

**************************
Tony Underwood <tony.underwood at cox.net> wrote:

This might not help...

The dual master cylinder concept is fine in theory but in practice 
it's not always that functional.  I've been doing this stuff for a 
while, and I've done a bit of brake work in my times.


Back When, I installed a dual master cylinder, big brakes, swapped 
out all the lines etc on my first '66 Plymouth Satellite.   Along the 
way I had a wheel cylinder cup leak and by the time I could get it 
home I had almost no brakes, front bowl was empty, rear bowl fine, 
still almost no brakes, best it would do was slowly "drag" to a stop 
with pedal to the floor.    After fixing the master cylinder, brakes 
were fine.   Ditto my brother's '67 Dodge Coronet, which had a leaky 
rear wheel cylinder, emptied the MC bowl and HE had practically no 
brakes.   Another adventurer I knew had a '69 Super-Bee all tricked 
out, removed the self-adjusters because "they make the brakes drag a 
little and it slows me down".   Uh huh.   One of the brake shoes' 
hardware came loose (either too much slack or installed wrong) and 
the cylinder blew out, front right, and HE had no brakes, nearly put 
him into a ditch.

Now:   One of the 'Vairs here had a similar situation, leaky wheel 
cylinder, drained the MC bowl, brakes were barely functional and 
pedal was on the floor.   Someone else with a '69 500 coupe, similar 
situation, empty MC bowl, almost no brakes.


The dual MC is no guarantee you're still gonna have anything 
resembling effective brakes on one end or the other if something 
fails.  The best you can expect is marginal (if that) braking ability 
with what you have left.

At least this is my experience.



tony.. 

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