Technical 51 Buick NOT a Show Stopper

I have a 1951 Buick Special 48D that is nothing special (certainly not a show stopper) but I have done a lot of work on it. I have tried to make it to the Symco show on two occasions over the last 3 years. Been there 5 out of 6 years. It is the single thing that I look forward to most every year. I get to go with my lovely wife, sister, dad, friends and cousins. We hit the show and stay at my dad’s hunting trailer near by. The first time I thought my car was road worthy enough was 3 years ago. The day of the show I left in the morning and several miles into the trip had a carb act up on me and was forced to take my regular vehicle. The following year I made it to the Oshkosh show with no problem after dealing with the carb. Now mind you I have a spare everything when I go on a road trip. Carb, mechanical fuel pump AND electric, distributor, coil, wheel cylinders, wheel bearings, generator, starter, solenoid and on and on. When I got to the Oshkosh show a guy asked how I lowered it. I replied…”put all my **** in the trunk”. The third year I am headed to the gas station before hitting the expressway toward Symco and bam master cylinder goes.…...Really? The only part I do not have fails? We take the regular vehicle again. Always a great weekend no matter what. Great show, venue, people etc….If you haven’t gone I highly recommend it!

So when we get back I decide there is no way I am missing another show to a breakdown. I decide to upgrade the brakes. Power and front discs. I do some research and find a Kanter catalog. Their catalog says it is a complete kit….. “improve safety and performance in a day”! I call them. I spoke to the people there and the salesman ***ures me that their complete kit is a direct bolt on. He says that the new master and booster take the place of the existing master and bolts in the same spot. I ask if he is sure and he reads his notes and says yes. I am thinking there is no way this is going to fit in the space that exists but he re***ures me and also confirms that I can use my factory wheels. I pull the trigger and take the plunge. I give him my credit card number and place the order. I wait 4 weeks for my parts to arrive. I open the boxes like a kid at Christmas. Looking through everything it appears of good quality but there is only one page of poorly photocopied information and absolutely no installation instructions. So I go to the garage to try to make heads or tails of the puzzle. No way is the master or booster fitting where the old one sat. It looks to be an under the floor unit. Okay maybe there is a bracket to mount it. Nope. Maybe they forgot to send it? The caliper mounting brackets and spacers have all the nuts and bolts in the holes so I carefully dis***emble them and test fit them in the locations they came. Nope. After trying different possibilities I am able to figure out which bolts and spacers go where. I get the brackets mounted. Bolt on! Complete kit! In a day.... My A$$! The following day I call Kanter and they immediately defer me to ABS Powerbrake the manufacturer. They say they will have one of their engineers call me. He does and he is a nice man named Memo. Not sure that he is an engineer but he is very knowledgeable and helpful. Unfortunately there is no bracket for mounting the booster. Memo tells me one will need to be made and that my pedal will need an adapter. He asks me for some dimensions so he can make the pedal adaptor but that I need to send him my pedal and decide where the booster goes and provide him with some measurements. Looking underneath there are not too many choices of where to put the booster and master since it is an X frame there is only one opening where the booster rod can p*** through and it is shared with the exhaust. The muffler also needs to move for the booster/master to align with the brake pedal. So I decide to learn to weld. I mock up a bracket with ¼” plywood. I then duplicated it in steel that I purchased along with grade 8 hardware and a drill press that I always wanted. My welds are not pretty but I get good penetration. I made the bracket to allow me up/down and left/ right adjustment. My goal is to have the bottom of the booster reside above the bottom of the frame and position the rod to clear the exhaust and land on the brake pedal base where the post hinges. I gather my dimensions and put them to paper including a drawing from several views. I search ebay and find a cheap brake pedal because there is no way I am sending my only pedal to Memo to weld on. Pedal arrives a week later and I send it off to Memo and email him my drawings and pics. The bearings, seals, and rotors all mount easily. However, there is a left/right clearance issue with the calipers. Looking closely there are bushings that seem as if they are not spaced equally. My thought is to give them a little persuasion. In doing so I get them remedied. Give the rotors a spin and there is a light s****ing noise. Look at the faces and they are all good. Looking closer I notice that the caliper hits the arc of the rotor at the top. No way to adjust for this. I pull them off and take my 4” grinder to the calipers. After several attempts I take enough off to clear the rotors. I run new brake lines and fittings (not included) to my new master. I buy vacuum hose and fittings (also not included) and install them from the intake manifold to the booster. I order a new muffler and some pipe to alter my exhaust around the booster/master location so I can mock it up. About 2 weeks later I get my secondary pedal back with the bracket. The bracket is not located on the pedal where I asked it to be. This means it will not p*** through the frame opening where it needs to left/right and will crash the edge of the frame. The bracket also hangs very low off the bottom and the hole that receives the rod is situated lower than my measurement. This will affect the rod angle up and down as I have planned. I get on the phone to Memo. He says that it needs to be that low for the pedal ratio to be correct. He says that I can place a grade 8 bolt in the hole to offset the rod L/R. So basically he did not need any dimensions at all!!. I do so and get the rod between the pedal and booster installed. I go to bleed the brakes and I am unable to get any pedal. This is a real PITA since the master sits so close to the bottom of the floor. I used a hand pump to get brake fluid into it and a mirror to check the level. No place for an above floor access panel. After reading about systems like this I realize I will need to power bleed or vacuum bleed them. After several attempts and a purchased and broken vacuum pump I decide to pull the calipers and bleed them sitting at a level lower than the master and remount. I have pedal! Great! Not so fast! After doing a double check before taking it out on the road I notice that the threaded rod on the pedal to booster rod is bent. Another call to Memo. He says the length of exposed threaded rod is too long. He tells me to make the distance of threads showing on each end less. He sends me new rod material and I re -fabricate it. I bleed the brakes again. Seems like I have pedal. Take a look at the rod again. Bent again! Call Memo again. This time he says that the up and down angle of the booster to bottom of his pedal bracket is too much. He sends me the rod material again and suggests that I drill a hole higher in the bracket. Ultimately I am forced to relocate my booster lower and drill a hole in the pedal bracket. I finally have brakes! August 14th to November 28th. Still need to reroute and connect the exhaust. Only time will tell if the brakes continue to work properly. The weather here is has changed and my plates do not allow me to do anymore driving than around the neighborhood for a test drive. Can’t wait til April 1st! Here is a link to all the photos on this project.I am hoping that my more than a day experience helps someone else out there get a brake system on their Buick of the same era. Overall I am glad that I did it but really wish that the whole system was better thought out and that I was given a more clear idea of what I was really in for as far as difficulty and other cost that I would encounter. Luckily I am just mechanical enough to get thru this project. It is not pretty and I am sure there are better ways and improvements that you all may have after seeing my pictures. I had a lot of help reading on the HAMB forums about similar systems guys have installed. Without that help it would have taken a lot longer. So thank you to all who have shared your knowledge. Below is a link to all the photos on my project. Hope it helps someone.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/8QXTlzEi80xzXrnU2

 

Looks good to me, my only suggestion is to make a heat shield between exhaust and master cylinder, will boil fluid. I feel you need a straight push into master, in time you'll see how yours works for you. Will mark this so I can find it as we have a 51 Roadmaster that I have totally rebuilt brake system completely with manual master as I saw a problem/ project to fit a booster using stock pedal. I feel your pain on buying bolt on/in parts, rarely does that happen, maybe with common cars that have been done for years, it gets better, maybe. I used to buy racing parts from suppliers, mating parts from same supplier and still machine work was necessary, not a problem for me as I owned a Tool&Die shop. All racers/car guys have a friend in the machine shop business IMO, to buy and bolt together does not happen very often, it's amazing, some of the **** I have bought and had to redo to make it work, but after 50+ years kind of use to it, still pisses me off, But, it is what it is, yesterday and today. Enjoy your Buick !