I was pretty happy this morning despite the fact that I woke up late and had to forego my morning cons***utional in order to meet my buddies in time for some off road biking up north. I loaded up everything in my old 59 F100 that I drive every single day with no problems at all. It's due for a front suspension rebuild and the brakes started pulling to left on Wednesday but it's still been driving okay. I check the fluids every Sunday night and there haven't been any leaks and it's parked in the garage so I'd know if it did anyway (with the exception of last night when I left it out to work in the garage). So this morning, the sun's out, the birds are chirpin, and I'm hangin with the guys doing something fun. All is well in the universe. I fire up the old big block and head out. The first stop is about a mile from my house and the brakes seemed a litte soft for the first time ever. I got to the next stop which is Mt. Comfort Rd and US40 and it's a pretty major 4 lane intersection. The light is red for me and I decided to recheck my brakes in advance after the sign of softness at the last sign. The pedal went to the floor and NOTHING happened. I pumped. Nothing. I'm doing about 50MPH and there is thick traffic in all four lanes that I'm rolling up to. No E-brake in this *****...just 4000 pounds of rolling big block and steel. Uh oh. I throw it in neutral and keep pumpin the wide pad. Nothin. There is oncoming traffic in the left lane and a big curb on the right. Nobody ahead of me at the light but four lanes of busy cross traffic. No place to really go. I've got the g***er skinnies up front but no other choice. I go for the curb at the lightest angle I can...and make it up over without any wheel damage. I'm then making a wide rooster turn in the wet gr*** (with cheater slicks) at 45MPH to try and run parallel with US40 in the emergeny lane. BUT OF COURSE, as soon as I get safely in the shoulder at 40MPH there is a guy cutting gr*** coming up on the shoulder and he doesn't see me at all. Again no where to go, so I merge into traffic on US40 and am able to cut across to the fast lane and then duck through the other two lanes of oncoming traffic with a brake about a half of a mile later and into a pizza place (no doing about 30 so I can't turn or stop in time in their gravel parking lot. I have to do the opposite, give it some gas and cut the wheel hard, spinning the back around and spewing gravel from the cheater slicks (no other cars in the lot since it's early in the morning) to point me around to other exit and then dropping back into neutral and heading back for US40. This freakin truck rolls WELL. I get it back down to about 5MPH before I get back to US40 and Mt. Comfort. There's a small break in traffic across all the lanes so I gun it and coast on home and tend to my earlier lack of attention to the morning cons***utional. I checked the brake lines, the master cylinder and the wheels and can't find any evidence of leak but the master cylinder is bone dry. I don't have a clue where I've lost it from but it wen't in a hurry. It was fine all week long and I wasn't due to check it again till tonight. I'm a little stumped. Anyway, the truck has factory brakes and they just aren't cutting it. I need to upgrade the master cylinder and probably even all four wheel brakes given the speeds this thing gets driven at. Anybody here got any suggestions for upgrading the 57-60 F100 brake system. I've vetoed the front clip consideration and am sticking with the straight axle but really need to make this thing safe. That was way too much defensive driving for a Sunday morning and way too much luck for a guy who probably should have gone straight to church from there. The point of this is not to share my turd-inducing hot rod experience this morning but to see if any of you F100 guys have done any good brake upgrades and what you used?
This is probably going to kill the pileup for me too cause I'm running my "fun account" on fumes right now at the bank anyway.
i have a 58 F100. i'm still running an all stock set up. it's pretty sketchy at times. i haven't done it yet but i was going to to buy a CPP front disc brake kit and later on upgrade the back with disc brakes as well. i just had my truck weighed. i have 3,410 lbs of burning love i need to stop. Dessertratrodder sells a kit for the back disc conversion. have you check this sight out... http://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=41 that was a serious close call. that happened once in my 78 full size Cherokee Jeep. some very scary stuff. the e-brake just barely slowed me down. the master cyl. went out on it...... good thing your around to remind us to check out our brakes.
man that sounds like a close call, ive never run a e brake it always seems like the last thing and it never gets done. it sure would have helped in this one. ive never experianced absolutly no brakes that got to raise the blood presure
geez, cantcha downshift that thing? or you got some fancy race ****** that has no ability to use the engine to slow the vehicle? glad you made it through that.
I'm losing the ****ty FMX and ultralousy B&M shifter this winter for the toploader I've got. For various reasons I couldn't use the engine to slow down the truck (****** and shifter related) so I had it in nuetral to prevent any idle progress when I got the speed down. It ****ed. It's now parked for the winter while I go though everything in the brakes, front suspension, and replace the transmission.
I'm probably gonna get a disk kit from ECI for my 57. They have a bolt on kit that uses late model F100 rotors so you can keep the 5 1/2x5 bolt pattern. The basic kit lists for $125 and complete for $370,although they run an add in Cl***ic Trucks that lists them for $100/$330 respectivly. Probably have to call them up and say you saw the add. They also sell a master cylinder adapter to bolt on a dual master cylinder. But for $70, I'm gonna try it myself with some 1/4 plate and a drill press. Glad your okay, that must have been a wild ride. http://ecihotrodbrakes.com/early_ford_discbrake_conversions.html
Geezs, glad you are ok...that must of been quite a ride. As others have pointed out upgrade parts are readily available. It is very unusual that you can loose fluid that quickly and not see a fluid source. Again glad you are ok and the truck isn't bent. Bill
been down that road before. no brakes make the heart pump like a s.o.b. glad you're ok and no sheet metal damage
I used the ECI kit on my '59 F100, and a '67 Mustang manual disc/drum master cylinder along with a Wilwood adjustable proportioning valve for the rear circuit. The m/c will fit the firewall without an adaptor if you mock it up and drill two holes where needed, then fab a small plate to cover the oversized hole in the firewall. I used Skip Porterfield's page as a guide, it gives you all the part numbers you need for fittings, etc.: http://www.fordtruk.com/index29.htm The ECI kit is a good one, but be aware it narrows your track about an inch on each side. On my truck this causes my left front tire to rub the Pitman arm at full left lock, but now I know to avoid doing that. I'm running stock rims, but something with some positive offset would fix the issue. .
You know, this whole thing is really my fault. I take that old truck for granted sometimes. It's pretty rust free, and it always runs. It stops, it steers, and I leave well enough alone. I've gotten away with that for too long I suspect. I've become one of those guys we talk about. No seat belts, old brakes, ****py suspension, etc... I've let it all go on too long. I need to get it in for the winter, get the seat belts in, get the brakes upgraded, rebuild the front suspension and get it back on the road more safely for spring time. I appreciate the leads. I've resisted adding a little technology to this one because I think it betrays the look I like with the straight axle and slicks but I might reconsider if the new brakes and master cylinder don't do the trick. The rest of it can be old school so long as it's rebuilt and relatively safe. I don't think this old truck was built to be driven the way it does. Really all I ever did was make it go faster in a straight line and that's always been the fun part of it....until I needed to stop this morning.
What started this whole thing was when I went to North Carolina about six or seven years ago. I went out to buy a car that was a turd when I got there. I was determined not to come home empty handed. I found this thing sitting in the junkyard at Richard's Auto Salvage in Denton. I bought it and drove it home though the mountains at night in the rain at ridiculous speeds because I was going to be late for work Monday if I didn't. I added a full case of oil to that motor on the 9 hour drive home. I honestly used nearly as much oil as gas on that trip. It was nuts. It was also a freakin blast. I fell in love with that thing...no seat belts, bouncing up so high out of the seat that I hit my head on the headliner when I hit big bumps with that big straight axle and worn out leaf springs. I got home and pulled the motor the next weekend and rebuilt it. When I went to put the motor back in, I noticed the mileage....66,666. No kidding. It was immediately christened the "Devil Truck" and has been ever since. I've got a lovely little bobble head Satan riding the dash courtesy of my old boss. That damn truck just won't die. It runs no matter what. I dig it. But it's been dangerous since day one. Not cool since that is putting you guys at risk too. I think it's gonna get a real paint job and and a restuffing of the tuck and roll seat this winter too.
i think i have been down that road too. stayed at a campground right around there. i replaced the single pot m/c with a dual reservoir. and i relocated it to the firewall. no need for one of those residue check valve thingys. i still have 4 drums, but they're more modern due to the front clip and axle change out. mine isn't a truck, just a 46 coupe. the drums have been ok for now, it would be easy for me to swap to disc with the modern spindles. so what do you guys think caused this? no fluid and no visable signs of a leak. the last stop was a soft pedal, then the next attempt, nothing at all?
I agree that a dual master and disc conversion would be good to do, but the question of where the fluid went is my discussion here. My guess is the puilling you expereinced the week before was because of a leaking wheel cyl, which if you pull both front drums, i bet you find the saoked shoes. You may even see a little bit of fluid on the inside of the tire. The leaking wheel cyl makes the shoes have a different friction,so it causes a pulling to one side, usually the side with the fluid leak. It leaks a little each time you put on the brakes, unitl you reached the point of dry master cyl. Since your system is single master, once dry you lost all the brakes. A dual reservoir master cyl is the safety solution. Disc brakes just gives you improved braking over the stock drums. And hook up the emergency brake so next time you have a small amount of brakes vs neutral.
that sounds like what I'd do, dual cylinder and fix the E brake. Discs are nice, but drums will (usually) stop almost as well, as long as you have some adrenaline going because you're about to run into someone, you can push damn hard on that pedal! if you do a dual cylinder, it won't do you any good unless you have enough pedal travel to make it bottom out fully (when there's no fluid in it, that is). The second half of a dual m/c uses the last little bit of travel to actuate the end of the truck that didn't leak out all the fluid. Most guys don't realize this little fact!
Thanks. I don't know how to resize them to fit. Someone did that one for me so I saved it. I did get back out there tonight and after it sat for a day, the leak showed itself. The left front line is severed.
The brakes aren't power are they? My dad told me once that he had a MC that bled into the booster, and left him with ineffective brakes and missing fluid. I'm having a problem with missing fluid on a dual chamber MC, the rear level keeps going down. I can't find a leak anywhere. Been doing it through two different MC's and boosters, so it has to be a line fitting somewhere. Rear wheel cylinders are fine, no fluid leaks either. There's something kinda "charming" about beat up old trucks, my dad had a 72 ford that had the ever-loving **** beat out of it. You didn't steer it so much as just kinda nudged it, and the brakes were always a **** shot. I really liked that junkpile...
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