Jeff Garner

My 67's brakes are marginal at best. Pumping the brakes before stopping doesn't help.
I plan to replace rubber brakes hoses because I don't know how old they are.

Now would be the time to add power brake booster if I choose.
What modifications, if any are required?
Any pros/cons to adding booster?

Swept57

There is something else wrong with the brake system if the braking is marginal. Manual brakes were not marginal from the factory. I am guessing that they are drum?

Nowhere Man

67 are disks. Am doing I agree there is something else amiss that you need to fix before adding power brakes.

The hardest part of add a booster is the bracket on the firewall

Jeff Garner

My guess would be the rubber brake hoses may be breaking down internally due to age.
Don't think the issue is with the master cylinder.

Not really adding the power booster to correct my problem, just saying now would be a good time to add that option to my car, since I'm breaking the system anyway.

What are the issues I may run into upgrading to PB??

Pros/cons?

DucatiDon

No cons, other than drilling holes in the firewall for the bracket.
Quick, easy instant gratification upgrade.

Don't forget to move the clevis on the brake pedal...

Frankie the Fink

There is something amiss with your brakes...
And yes the lower hole in the brake pedal down road is for power brakes to accommodate the tilted M/C and change the pedal force needed.

bigearl56

Jeff, As stated you have to add a bracket to the firewall and locate your vacuume source. No cons and I believe the master cylinder is the same. I just followed the pictures in the assembly manual.
Good luck whichever way you go.
Earl

Nowhere Man

The only cons are if your going to get it judged most likely it will be found and points taken away

Frankie the Fink

The 'giveaway' on adding power brakes on a 63 is if you leave the manual brake return spring on the shaft in the brake pedal support bracket after the conversion. Power brake cars do not retain that spring.

USMC 0802

Replace your old rubber hoses with SS units, bleed the **** out of them and be done.

Less than $100.

Good luck!

ETA: worked like a charm on my '66...

bcwaller

I've got manual brakes on mine and they are great. Adding a power booster will not fix what is causing your issues. Could be bad rubber lines, air in the system, water in the fluid, or excessive runout causing the pistons to suck in air or rock back in the caliper between braking. Find and fix that, then decide if you still want power brakes.

hope2

you don't need power brakes on a properly operating 65-67 brake system.

Jeff Garner

Thanks for all the advice. I plan to do a thorough brake job, including flushing all the fluid, brake pads, hoses, etc.

And again, I'm not adding the brake booster to correct my problem. I'm just considering upgrading to PB since I'm going through everything.

bigearl56

Jeff, I know you have and have had some nice cars. Are you into NCRS judging?
Earl

ricks327

I have owned my manual brake 67 for over 15 years and have never considered adding power brakes. They stop fine w/o any problems with depressing the brake pedal with my 71 year old legs. But then again, I walk 3-4 miles 5 times a week.

Jeff Garner

Hey Big Earl.
Good to hear from you. I like original, and restored correctly, but am not at all interested in NCRS judging.


Jeff

Crunch527

Agree...could give a rats jazz about points...

Also agree that something is amiss...67 manual brakes are a great design. Power brakes aren't really necessary unless you just want them...

hope2

same here, done that.

boxster99t

So that you don't get a misleading impression, no one above pointed out that your existing front to rear brake line will be too short once you mount the booster and MC bolt on the car. You'll either need to replace it with a new brake line or straighten the existing line to make it reach, which I've read is possible but never tried it. The hardest part of replacing the front to rear brake line is getting it in place, because it rides on the outside of the frame rail, and is held in place with steel clamps--there's typically not enough space to get a wrench on the clamp bolts to remove unless you jack up the body, which I didn't want to mess with on the theory that sometimes it's better to leave certain things alone.

What I did and some others too, is cut the brake line clamps and spread them out to remove the brake line, and after the new line was in place, just pinch them closed. The brake line cannot move much really because it's held in place at the rear where it goes over the frame, is clamped in the front and passes through the center cross member and it's fully shielded. So it doesn't seem hyper critically to have the two slide clamps really tight.

You will have to straighten the bend in the brake line to get it in place in the rear. That's where the judging points come into play--it will be fully functional but won't look as nice as it would if you raised the body up and put the pre-bent line in place without straightening and rebending.

I was lucky on mine because the bracket for the power brake vacuum booster was on the car, but was glassed over. Just had to use a dremel to cut away the fiberglass that was covering the bracket. Don't know whether it started life with power brakes and someone removed (which not sure why one would do that) and did some fiberglass repair or if it was put on the body by mistake day one--mine's a Smith Body car so there's minimal trim tag data to go off of, and the tank sticker was gone off the car. So who knows.

And you will have to go under the dash, because the standard disk brakes have the MC bolted to studs in the firewall with the nuts reachable from the engine compartment. With power, you hammer the studs out, the studs on the booster go through those holes and you secure with the nuts from the driver side of the firewall. That's fun because in addition to being under the dash, there isn't much room to swing a wrench--I can remember turning the nut less than a quarter of a turn at a time, on my back under the dash. I hate under the dash work.

When I did my conversion, I bought all new parts, all new steel brake lines, calipers, MC and reused the existing rotors. I would also save yourself aggravation and replace the brass brake line blocks--I literally could not get the old brake lines off the brass blocks and just cut the brake lines with a cutoff wheel. I had the entire brake system off the car in one afternoon, with the car up on jack stands. It took me about two weekends to get everything back on--I'd never worked with brake lines in my life although I have flushed lots of brake systems and changed pads, rotors and the like. So it was a bit of learning curve.

All in all, wish I had done it day one. When I bought the car in 2010, it never stopped right. In fact it was down right dangerous--so first thing I did was replace the brake fluid and the MC immediately went bad. Replaced it, bench bled the new MC, refilled the system with fresh fluid, bled, replaced the brake pads with the organic OEM pads and it stopped better but still not like it should. Then in 2013 I did the power brake conversion--very happy with the results.

So I would say do it.

davekp78

You can just use a union and add a new short hard line to lengthen the rear brake line.