Technical 48000 mile 62 Pontiac Grand Prix brake questions. Now with updates and pictures

As the title says, I'm working on a really solid 48000 mile 62 Pontiac Grand Prix. It's sat for over 30 years. My buddy just bought it. My question is,where is a good place to buy brake parts like wheel cylinders, rubber brake hoses, etc. The car pulls hard to the right. I'm doing some other things to the car now, but will be looking into the brakes this week. The car has the Pontiac 8 lug wheels. Thanks, Dean

 

rockauto.com lists wheel cylinders and brake hoses for it. But you have to be really careful to make sure they are the right ones, by looking at the specs and pictures of the parts vs the old parts you're holding in your hand.

 

Thanks Squirrel. I just remembered Kanter, but they don't have anything. There was another place, but I cant remember the name. Once I get a wheel off I'll know more.

 

Ames Performance has quite a few of the parts you will be looking for. I just went through the brakes on a 1963 Grand Prix with 8 lug wheels. I was also able to obtain wheel cylinders, a master cylinder and shoes at a locally owned auto parts store but that will be hit and miss, the large chains will likely not have much of anything. Harmon Brakes carries master cylinders and can also rebuild your power booster. I would recommend spending the money to have it rebuilt by them, it won’t cost much more than a kit. I purchased two power booster rebuild kits from Ames and after many frustrating attempts was able to get one booster functioning. I made my own disassembly and assembly tools but they can be tricky. Not difficult, but tricky. Hopefully the car hasn’t developed corrosion between the iron liner and the aluminum drums, if it has you will be looking at a substantial expense. I purchased two 63 Grand Prix’s last year and one of the cars had good drums and the other needed new liners, about a $3k expense. I plan on doing it myself and making all the tools to hold them in a lathe to do all the machining. I think there is one company that still relines the 8 lug drums but I’m not certain on that.
Best of luck on the brake rebuild, not many wheels look as good as those 8 lugs on the old Pontiacs.

 

I like Rock Auto for brake parts, just got everything for my OT Belair from them.

 

Drum relining
https://www.jgrelining.com/pontiac

 

Ekler's maybe ?

 

The brake drum hardware is the same regardless of whether regular drums or the 8 lugs, fyi.

 

They had a lot of problems with those 8 lug drums when those cars were new and a lot of guys pulled them off and put regular brakes on.

Pulling to one side can be due to a lot of things even tire pressure.
When you have the shoes off take a close look at the backing plates to make sure that there aren't wear ridges in the spots that the shoes slide on. A little smear of grease on those spots helps a lot but if they show wear they need to be dressed up smooth.
I'd replace all the springs as insurance.

As a quick check make sure that the shoes on both sides or on correctly with the short lining in the front and longer lining in the back. I've worked on a lot of brakes on Mondays that some guy did his own brake job on Saturday and did the first side right and went around and put the shoes on backwards on the second side. That and springs in the wrong places.

 

BOP engineering ,BOP Parts

 

Thanks for all the answers. It was really hot today, so I decided to do something else today. I will probably look at it tomorrow. Still going to be hot, but that's ok. I'm hoping everything will be in good shape, as the car only has 42,000 miles on it. Balljoint, the booster was changed before the now owner bought it. I haven't driven it yet because we couldn't get it to start and stay running. The new owner bought it from a dealer in Kansas. My Buddy and I saw it at Pete and Jakes open house, and told the new owner about it. he went to Kansas and bought it, drove it 2.5 hours home with no problems. He then drove it to a local cruise night and barely made it home. I had it towed to my house and found the problem yesterday. Someone put the wrong coil on it, and burned up the points. I put a new Edelbrock carb on it, as the original one was pretty gummed up, and the owner wanted it changed, bought a new Pertronix distributor, Pertronix coil, sparkplugs, and wires. I ordered the wrong distributor, so the correct one should be here tomorrow. I hope to get it back together Thursday, and fire it up.

 

KEEP the gummed-up original carb just in case........

Jon

 

Fabcraft has early Pontiac drums and other parts
https://fabcraftmetalworks.com

 

I will be saving all the original parts. We're not restorers, but we won't be cutting this car up, it just needs to be reliable. There's to many out there that are not this nice that need to be modified.

 

how bout a pic or 2?

 

Tomorrow

 

Ok, rusty1 wanted pictures, so I have pictures. I also have some history on this car, and an update, so here's the history, The car was bought at an auction over 30 years ago. The guy who bought it at auction passed away shortly after buying it. It sat in his driveway for 30 some years. The widow finally decided to sell it, probably after watching Barret Jackson auction on TV. Anyway, a dealer from Kansas bought it. My Buddy and I saw it at Pete and Jake's open house for sale. We gave the info to a friend of ours who just recently lost his car, nice 57 Ford, tools, a lifetime of memorabilia, and his shop that looked like an old gas station to a fire. Bob the new owner was a body and paint guy his whole life, but is getting up there in years, and building another car is not going to happen, so he bought this car. He drove the car home 2.5 hours with no problems. All the brakes have been gone through, everything's been replaced, steel brake lines, you name it, so I guess I don't need parts. I will adjust the brakes, and bleed them again, as the left front barley works. After Bob got the car home and drove it a little bit, it stopped running. I went to his house and couldn't get it running, so I ordered a new Edelbrock carb, Pertronix distributor, coil, E3 spark plugs, and wires. I went back to Bob's and put the carb on. I got it to start, but it wouldn't run good enough to drive it, so we had it towed to my shop. I put the distributor, coil, and plugs on it. The plug wires on it had already been changed, so I reused them. It fired up after I timed it, and it runs really good. I drove it to lunch today, and drove it around town. It's fun to drive, peppy, no hesitation. It will shit and get! I'm not sure what rear gears are in it, but I'd say they are close to 4.11 gears. It does look like the top of the left 1/4 has been repainted, as well as the right front fender, and the right door. No rust to really mention. Also came with 4 brand new tires installed. I'll probably do the brake bleed and adjustment tomorrow, and I'm going to put a thermostat in it, seem to run a little warm. I think Bob will be very happy with his car. Oh, it stopped running because someone put the wrong coil on it and burnt up the points and I think the coil too. (PS) Thanks to Carbking for reaching out to me about replacing the carb with some concerns he had about using the Edelbrock carb. Much appreciated.

 

That sat in a driveway for thirty years...?

 

thanks for the pics, very nice car, that interior is super,...good luck with the car.
...one of Pontiacs best designs...

 

Bled the brakes and adjusted them. Car stops better, but still has a slight pull. I did pull the drums off just to look at everything and it's all new. The shoes show some uneven wear, so if they could be matched to the drum I'm sure that would solve the problem. I changed the thermostat also It will puke some coolant out the overflow when you shut it off. Still did it after changing the thermostat. It's not getting hot, I checked it with a thermometer, it has no temp gauge. I drove it around this evening, but the skies started to get black, and I could hear thunder, so I headed home before it rained. I'll give it back tomorrow if it's not raining. I will miss it.

 

I gave Bob back his car this morning. He called me later this evening to thank me, and tell me how happy he is with the car. He said he can't believe how well it runs. He said it didn't run anywhere near that good when he bought it and drove it home 2.5 hours from Kansas. He is really surprised how hard it pulls in 4th gear. I'm very happy that he's so happy. I'm glad I was able to do that for him.

 

Dean, you are a Great friend and person to help him with his car. Job well done.

 

Thanks Keith.