I have an issue with the bedix master cylinder in my Olds. The car stops but when I am at a stop light I need to put the car in nuetral cause my leg is on fire from holding the pedal down so hard. The pedal does not go all the way to the floor it just feels like I have no power brakes. I can hear air being pushed out of the cylinder where the rod that attatches to my pedal comes out of. I figure that would be a vacuum leak but I just dont know how easy it would be to fix it. I know the guy I bought the car from had the cylinder rebuilt. What have you guys done? Should I go with something else? What can I use instead of the stock master cylinder but still keep drum brakes? Any advice is good advice. I just need to get this fixed before I can do any interior.
have just gone through or am still going through this , mine is the moraine but essentially the same. I have had the MC and booster rebuilt, at incredible cost and have now decided that I am changing it out. I have just got back from our biggest swap here in Australia and have bought a HQ mc and booster, probably equivalent to a early 70's camaro at a guess, as in size of car. if you looke up 'street rod garage' they sell a kit for disc brakes. there is a photo of the plate they sell that will mount a MC and booster on the firewall, I am planning on making a plate similar to that to mount mine. as for swinging pedal, I will chase down the pedal assembly that matches the booster and MC that I bought and make it fit, or even look at adapting the '55 one with some bracket of soughts. Reason I thought of using the matching swinging pedal is to get the right ratio. the tredalvac in the floor boards assemblies seem to be known to have troubles. one thing the brake guy said to me was that the vacuum line needs to go up and come down so you have like a loop higher than the carb incase you suck fuel etc into the line and it ends up in the booster and stuffs it. I would believe this as when I started to disassemble mine I found this in it. hope this helps?!?
I had the same setup on a 53 and repaired it a couple times and did not want to spend the big bucks to have a professional rebuild it so I went to a junkyard and got a manual brake setup and never had any more problems,lost the power assist but never had to work on the master cylinder again.
Thank you. Was it pretty easy to change over to the manual brake set-up. Did you have to change anything around?
It was easy to change and I got everything from the donor car,the manual brake setup is completely different then the power brake but all the holes are in the frame,the manual brake pedal comes up through the floor like a 30s or 40s car but if you can find a donor car that has everything its a easy swap.
I know you can use the manual brake stuff off a 54 to 56 and posibly a 53 too,if you cant find a olds look at the same years of buicks since they share similar bodies.
On my 55, I replaced the box on the firewall with a flat cover I made out of 1/8th inch plate. Then I used the brake pedal assembly and dual master cylinder from a 67 Chevy truck. Even without a booster, it stops great.
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