Technical Need help with Treadle-Vac Fix

Lol, I hope I never have to mess with one.
I haven’t seen anything terminal on mine yet but now you’ve got me thinking that I’d better go in for a better look. We’ll see.
It’s Dr appointments and shopping with the wife today.

 

I’ve been working on other projects but I finally got around to calling about a kit for the Treadle-Vac. Not knowing what car it came from I was hoping to lean on the expertise of the suppliers. Forget that. I decided to start with the two biggies, Harmon’s and Kanter’s. Harmon’s didn’t answer the phone so I left a message - no call back.
I got the sales guy at Kanter’s and it was like talking to a counter guy at the local auto parts store. Year, make, and model, please…. I don’t know, then I’ll have to transfer you to the tech guy. No one answered. I left a message. He called back later but he couldn’t help without…. Year, make and model. Sheesh. He said we could guess but, of course, I would have to pay shipping both ways if it was wrong. Crap. I said that I would do some more research and call back.
So I did some more looking at google images and websites with kits hoping to find “fits units 0-2 & 0-3” somewhere among the offerings. No one lists them like that. BUT, on good old eBay, I found a listing for a ’55-early ‘57 Olds that looked promising. So I contacted the seller giving them the ID number, dimensional info and pictures, Friday night at 10pm.
This morning at 6:30 I grabbed my coffee and my phone, sat on the front porch and checked my email. There was a response from Midwest Booster, “you’re treadle-vac is from a ‘53 Olds and we have a kit for it”. With a link. Yee - haw!! I was all over it like a cheap suit. The order is in, hopefully it gets here before I forget how it goes back together! Lol.
Meanwhile, back to doing brake lines on my roadster….

 

Good news Bob!

 

Time for an update, I don’t want anyone thinking it’s a dead thread. Yes, the kit arrived in a timely fashion and after looking it over, I put it in the box with the rest of the parts and ignored it while I worked on my roadster.
But last weekend I had the Stude shipped up here to my shop and my excitement was rekindled.
I cleaned and painted the big vacuum can and assembled the M/C. I put those two subassemblies together. Everything went together nicely. (Excuse my messy bench)

Meanwhile, over to the carburetor bench to disassemble the vacuum piston assembly and more cleaning….

My $180 kit did not include a new diaphragm (?) so I had to be extremely careful taking it all apart. The old one seems to be fine but I expected the deluxe kit to have a replacement for all of the soft parts. Oh well.

My concern is getting the old gasket residue off the edge of the diaphragm without damaging it. So I’ll take a little break and run Phil a’s transmission parts to the P.O. I’ll finish it up later. Maybe a good method will come to me.

 

I cleaned all of the other parts and attacked the gasket residue on the diaphragm last. I dug out some orangewood sticks and tried that. The diaphragm material seems very tough but I slowly and carefully scraped it off with the stick sharpened like a chisel.
There’s another big spring inside the piston assembly making it hard to get everything lined up, compressed and the screws in without messing up the gasket or the diaphragm, So I used some long 6-32 screws as guides.

I put the rest of the screws in and tightened them. The new leather seal was soaking in Neatsfoot oil while I wrestled with that part.

I had one of those, “oh sh!t, which way does this go” moments while assembling the new leather seal to the plate with the expander felt and spring but as the panic subsided I remembered and got the piston assembly finished.

All that’s left is to assemble it into the big canister, install the breather cap and vacuum hose fitting.

 

Very interesting thread. Thanks!

 

Well, after dinner I went out to the shop to shut down for the day but I couldn’t resist finishing up this little adventure. I put a light coat of Neatsfoot oil on the inside of the vacuum canister and the leather seal and pushed the vacuum piston assembly in, snug fit but nice. I put the cover plate on but the “bend-over tangs” that hold it in place when not bolted in the car have all broken off so I used a couple 5/16 bolts for now. I installed the hose fitting and the breather. The new bellows and dust seal completed the front. I installed the reservoir cover temporarily since I need to buy some copper color paint to finish it right. Actually, the cover is copper plated (?), but it’s worn off in some places exposing the steel. I also need to figure out how to extend the dipstick/fill tube. Mounted in the truck, you can’t access it to check or fill the thing. Strange.
So here’s the finished product, ready to be reinstalled in the old Stude.

Of course I won’t know if I was truly successful until I refurbish the rest of the brake system but I hope this thread helps someone who may be trying to decide whether to rebuild one of these themselves or not. It wasn’t too bad.

 

I rebuilt the treadle-vac in the avatar. It was in a scrap yard missing the whole unit when purchased, but I found one in a storage trailer near the caddy. No idea of year or make, Kanter sent a kit and it all worked out no problems. I used silicone grease on the leather piston seal. Was not a hard job at all. Actually enjoyed figuring out the old tech.

 

Me too.
They supplied silicone grease with the kit but it said right on the packet that Neatsfoot oil was better if available. I always have it around because many times it will revive the leather accelerator pump plunger in old Carter AFBs. When I was a kid, my Dad always had me treat my baseball gloves with it at the end of each season. I’ve used it many times to revive vacuum windshield wiper motors. Good stuff.

Out of curiosity, did your kit contain a new diaphragm that goes inside the big piston? Since I didn’t know precisely what my Treadle Vac came out of, Kanter’s didn’t know what kit to send me.

 

I re-used the diaphragm, for the same reason as you did. Drove the car for a year and sold it.

 

Seeing as how the diaphragm is 70 years old and still strong and flexible, I guess they did a good job selecting a material, huh?

 

Great job, very interesting thread. I guess you are all set now. As I was reading it I thought of going on Classic Oldsmobile and searching for a trendle system that maybe some one replaced?? Well I am confident you got it handled.

 

I'm reinstalling it right now. I just walked into the shop to grab a screwdriver. I wiggled the mouse to see what was on the HAMB page and there's a new post.
Unfortunately, finagling it through the chassis has dinged up my paint job some but, it's in. Just have to readjust the outlet fitting to line up with the brake line and hook that up. I cut the dipstick tube and extended it with some braided stainless hose so I can fill it and check it from up in the engine compartment.

 

So here it is in its (un?)natural environment. Nestled between frame rail and torsion bar. With the starter yet to be installed. So you can kinda see how cramped it is under there. I removed the curly brake line and flushed it out while the access was better. You can also see the little dipstick handle next to the plug wires, I’ll clamp it to the firewall and I’ll actually be able to fill and check the brake fluid.

Here’s a couple more….

 

The starter is clean and ready to install, so is the exhaust manifold. I just need to clean the exhaust manifold bolts.
While everything was out of the way, I replaced the freeze plugs on that side with nice new Melling brass ones that I got off of eBay. I guess I’ll have to pull the stuff off of the other side and replace them too. I was feeling better about them until my buddy reminded me that there are two in the back of the block rotting away too! Dang.
The business card is from the company that I got the Treadle Vac rebuild kit from. They seem to be able to identify stray units from pictures and ID numbers better than the other suppliers.