Are there any major land mines in buying a used factory power brake set up for 1957 Fords? The booster supposedly holds vacuum and the vacuum tank is included. I know there is some sort of linkage associated with the brake peddle and I don't know if it is included. Is there any other parts of the system that are required and hard or impossible to find? I'm not overly worried about the booster condition as there is a rebuilder service (Booster Dewey) in Portland, OR, which is close by. Thanks
Jeff

Jeff Petersen

On my '57 the brake pedal is different than the standard one. It has an articulated joint as I remember. I have defeated the joint and installed manual brakes. Also, the PB master cylinder has a 1 1/8" bore, the standard is 1".

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"

Hi.....In regards to purchasing a used power brake setup for the '57 ford there are no land-mines to speak of..... I purchased two used ones and both the bellows were in excellent condition. You mentioned yours was fine....You need the brake pedal and yes there is a pivot point in the brake pedal arm. If you don't have a '57 ford shop manuel (blue color ford/thunderbird) you should invest in one. If you have a vacuum pump you can test the unit out of the car. If you don't have a separate vacuum source use your car's engine. Get about 4ft of 5/16" hose and connect to the vacuum port on the intake manifold. I'm going to assume you don't have the brass block on the intake manifold, it's a block that has two ports. One for the PB booster and the other goes to the vacuum side of the fuel pump.....I can explain this better if you need clarification? One of the nice things about the 57 for Power brakes that's unlike the '55-57 T-birds and the '55-'56 fords is that the power brake unit is completely separate then from the cars braking system. In other words if for some reason the power brake unit stops working u will still have you manuel brakes....the pedal will just be harder to push and apply the brakes.....but after all this is what your driving with now....Someone mentioned that the master cylinder is 1 1/8" for power brakes? I'm not going to say he's wrong but I've never seen this ....I, have some used original master cylinders and one that's N.O.S. I never seen a master cylinder's bore diameter larger then 1" for the passenger cars and T-birds....The current master cylinder you have will be fine as long as it's not leaking fluid and in good working order.....I'd be happy to help with any other questions you may have.....Hope this has helped.....I, have information on how to install the unit when you get to that point....

Best Regards,

Jeff

I wanted to mention....You need the check valve that's mounted in the corner of the vacuum tank. This check valve usually works it can be taken apart if needed...It's screwed into the tank. Trying to find one would be difficult to say the least if it's not there. Also if you don't get the brake pedal arm with the unit it's probably not worth buying, unless the guy wants less the $50.00. If you need help identifying the parts and the # of parts I, can help with this......

Jeff

Thanks for all the great feedback. I wasn't aware of the check valve in the reservoir tank. Sounds like the best approach is to find a complete used system.I had tried a firewall mounted system from Irish Dave, had to use a later Ford offset mounting bracket to clear the exhaust manifold. It worked but after a short time of driving the master cylinder would get hot and the brakes would drag. So I went back to manual brakes and that is why I was looking into the factory power brakes.

Jeff Petersen

Dualquad312:

My '57 had factory power brakes. I took out the diaphragm mechanism to convert to manual, it was going to be a drag car. I found that no matter hard I pushed the pedal, I could hardly stop the car, couldn't hold it back while stalling against the converter. Slide the tires? Forget it. I researched the NAPA parts catalog, and found that the standard brake cars had 1" master cylinder, PB cars had 1 1/8". Took the master off and measured it, 1 1/8". Put a 1" cylinder on, solved all three problems.

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"