Glad they got you fixed right up with a tow to pull you up. We haven't gone out much since this started, and have no plans to do anything today either. It's not supposed to warm up until afternoon so I guess we have the snow to enjoy for the next 12 hours.

 

Sure looks pretty all clean & white.

My son has been out of town with his job, think SC.
Have not heard from him so hope he and his boss are ok.

I dont plan to go out any time soon with this snow down and if I do it will be to shovel the drive as I did not put the plow on the tractor.
We never get enough snow to plow so I did not swap the mower deck for the plow and it is a pain to do so now.

Hope all stay safe and warm
Dave ----

 

You are right for sure, it is pretty out all covered in white.

I am glad I got a carport so that the cars can be protected from weather like this, and I won't ever have to scrape snow off the windows again....

 

It was so nice out today I decided to get the Mustang out and take the wife for a cruise. We had a positive covid exposure so we really couldn't go anywhere, just rode around and burned some gas. Dave, when I left the McGees area I saw you had your work truck (concrete hopper) and the red & white F100 in the driveway, so I tooted my horn. Looks like your yard is full of construction equipment from that ditch widening project on 210. We went past you, out around Willow Springs, Fuquay, Angier, Coats, back towards Benson then home. Felt nice to get out and roll the window down for a change!

 

Sounds like a nice drive you and the wife had.
I did have plans on wash & vacuum the truck but being I was up at 12am.
After the trash run, I made sure my recliner did not float away LOL
The wife and I went out for dinner. We have not done that in a while.


I did take the truck out for the weekly trash run when I got home. If the truck was in the drive the trash was done.
I did use the truck all week to / from work but took the Durango this morning as I did not want to leave the PU at work all weekend and even more so if we have winter weather coming in Sunday night.

I had to work today, 2 loads of LP (Oxford & Garner) then dropped the LP trailer for the cement trailer and then home around 9am.
I was on cement Friday and they had me pre-load for a Monday 7am drop in Newport, out pass New Bern.
Its a 3 hour drive from my house or Apex but I get to sleep an extra hour because I dont have to drive to Apex.
Dave ----

 

It was probably 2 or 2:30 when I went past your house. Good deal on keeping that recliner safe, I am making sure mine doesn't fly away right now! Glad you and the wife got a chance to go out to dinner together. Sherry and I passed Napper Tandy's in Angier which neither of us knew about, but we both love a good Irish Pub so I think we are going to try that place out next week.

 

Oh all the equipment is for new water main they are running.
Dont know if it is run along side the one there now to supply new housing or to replace the one in ground now?

Only thing I and son told them is when they get to the end of my yard they have to make sure I can drive my truck in & out, loaded gas is over 80K, with out needing a tow truck to pull me out because they did not pack it down. We will see

Yesterday when we went out for dinner I took the truck because it was out.
On the way there a guy pulled up along side and gave a thumbs up then got in front and arm out window another thumbs up.
Dont think it was the bird as I was going with the flow and stayed in my lane the whole way LOL
This was on 40 doing 70+ mph.

Why is it you park far from the door, wife ask me why so it was far LOL
No one else around and spots closer to the door. Come out and someone is parked right next to you?
There was 4 other spots but no, in the vary next slot.
At lest the other side did leave a spot between us.
Dave ----

 

So I ordered new "LED Tail Lights" for my old Mustang. I put that in quotation marks to make it is very clear what the ebay item says! When I opened the box, there was only one light. No wonder it was a little cheaper than the other sellers! Every place where it was described, the seller used "lights" plural, but in the box where the details are it said "sold individually". So I feel like a fool for getting duped. I went ahead and replaced my very dim tail light with the new LED one and now wait for the second one that I had to order today to arrive.

 

Both light were not LED?
It was hard to see with the bright sun shining on them when we checked them.
Dave ----

 

Correct, the regular incandescent bulb was on the left side, and the new LED was on the right. But the second LED should arrive in the mail by Tuesday.

 

Hope everyone is doing well. Just working, and tinkering on projects as I get time here as usual.

 

So, I've been running this idea through my head of how to get power assisted brakes for the Studebaker. Everything is complicated by the underneath the body frame mounted master cylinder. You have to pull back the carpet in front of the seat to access a hole to reach down & undo the cap to check or add brake fluid.

Single reservoir single brake line outlet, original brakes on my car.

Obviously space is very limited here. I found this frame mount setup for a Ford Model A, but I think the length of it is too much to fit in the space I have.

The bracket and the brake line outlet are on the opposite side for what I would need, but those things are easily modified or changed.

A lot of people upgrade to a dual m/c with remote reservoir like this Wilwood unit. You can mount on the reservoir on firewall in the engine bay, so you won't have to go under the carpet anymore. It's available in 7/8, 13/16, 1 inch, or 1-1/8.

You can also tee the lines together so that you only have one reservoir on the firewall.

But that still doesn't provide power assist. The way the factory provided power assist was a hydrovac unit. A lot of people complain that the units are prone to failure, at which point all braking goes away, and brake fluid then gets sucked through the vacuum line into the engine. The design includes a leather diaphram with a rope seal, so that's really old-school, and not really what you'd expect in a modern setup. These were only ever used in the drum/drum days, so they are not for front disc brakes.

I am not sure about the overall size of this, so not sure where I could mount it. But it is not well regarded by it's owners.

I found something similar, this vacuum line booster from MP Brakes. It uses engine vacuum and the brake lines route through it, and it says you can "mount it anywhere". Obviously "anywhere" means on the drivers side inner fender or firewall, since that is where the brake line runs. I downloaded the installation instructions so I could familiarize myself with it, and it only provides boost for the front brakes. So, route the rear brake lines from the m/c as normal, route the front brake lines to the auxilliary booster, and then split them out to the front left and right calipers. The problem is, at 10" diameter canister, finding a good spot to put it (especially that doesn't look completely added on as an after-thought) is difficult. I haven't come up with a good solution yet. Plus, it costs more than $500.

Slick idea, I have not talked to anyone personally who has used one though.

Which leads me to my next idea. If electric vehicles don't have engines, then they must not have traditional vacuum operated power assist, right? I went searching and found many examples of electric power assisted brake boosters. Honda CRV and Nissan Leaf just to name a few. The idea seems promising, although I would need to figure out wiring, as it looks like aside from power and ground they also have 4 or 5 sensor wires. But they are big and clunky and so going back to my mounting space under the car beside the frame, I don't think it would fit.

The end to end distance is quite large, as is the top to bottom height. This would definitely hang down far below the frame rail

The smallest one looks like this 2020 Honda Civic setup, I think I could fabricate a mounting bracket and push-rod, and only have it hanging down maybe 1 inch below the frame. So not fully protected as I would like, but not too-too bad. But most modern cars especially EV's are no longer "drum brake rear" so if its made for disc/disc then I am not too sure about how to make it work for me.

Seems like it might only add 3-4 inches to the overall length, and maybe 1 inch below the frame.

So this leads me to my last idea which has been rolling around my head. What about a 12v linear actuator, that pushes against the m/c push rod? You can these actuators in any configuration, you can choose the ram distance and the amount of force. Figuring that traditional vacuum boosters can add between 200-300 pounds of force. This one with a 4 inch stroke and 330 pounds of force costs $156.

Fabrication would be easy, but wiring to make it work when needed might be impossible.

But how do I trigger to come on, and then release when the brake pedal is no longer being pressed? If I wired it to a relay that was triggered by the brake light, then whenever I press the brake down, as soon as the pedal moves far enough cause the brake lights to come on, the actuator would engage. But it would still continue holding it even once I removed my foot from the pedal. If only I could figure this out, I would definitely have a slick setup that no one else has!

 

Ok that last one I cant see it working as planed.
First and for most anything used has to also work with no power to it.
Vacuum or hyd or even electric still work all be it vary hard to push the pedal but it will stop as needed with out power to them.

If there is no power to that how is it going to work?
Then as you pointed out if it comes on / off with the brake lights it will also be on or off and nothing in between in my book.
I think a rheostat type deal would be needed. Need a little braking just a little voltage, more braking more volts and a lot a lot of voltage.
I dont know if it works that way or not?

What do the Stude guys do for power brakes?
Dose the car now have disc / drums and when is the bore of the master now?
Do you know the piston stroke? You will need to know the bore & stroke for the new master as a start.
I think any of the smaller electric masters will have too small bore & stroke masters to be of use.

I know you may not want to or even hear this but how much room do you have in the engine bay where a normal booster / master would be mounted?
Wait Wilwood has pedals that mount low on the floor is there room on the front side low on the firewall to mount them, not using the factory pedal, and maybe a booster / master?

In your picture is the factory master mounted to the outside of the frame?
It looks like the picture could be backwards as I have never seen a frame C to the outside.
I still think the hot rod set up in the first picture is the way to go as long as the bore & stroke and the same as yours.

Now IIRC a small bore will boost the psi the wheels see but they have less stroke as a down side.
So if you find non-power brakes are too hard with say a 1" bore then going to a 7/8" bore or smaller may help.
I cant remember if I have any books on brake systems, have to look, but if I do that will help you "build a system".
Dave ----

 

Week ago Wednesday I woke about 11pm with a pain just under my right side rib cage to the point the wife & son wanted me to go to the ER but I said no way.

Pain so bad it made me sick and dry heaves. About 4am I was able to lay down for about 45 min at a time to get some rest.

Well come 1pm the pain gone the wife made me go to urgent care.


A check the doctor thinks gall bladder issue and ordered me for a scan.
I took the weekend off to get over the pain. I worked the this week with today off for the scan with no issues.

Well today was scan day, 8:30. When done they said the doctor would have the pictures in 24 hours but being Friday most likely not hear from him till Monday or the next day. Well by 12:30 I heard back from the doctor and not great news got Gall Stones and sending me to a surgeon to see what they have to say.
So I wait to see where that goes now but from what the wife has looked up it looks like they go in to remove them

Sad part is a week or 2 before I had my yearly wellness check and all was good then.
Sucks getting old
Dave ----

 

Many years ago 1 of the first AC clubs I joined also did a little in the Stude side of things but think it was mainly motor side as the early AMC motors where pretty close to the stude motors.
Thing is I cant remember if I saved any of the news letters and if so did they have anything in them on brakes?
When looking if I have a brake book I will see if I have any of the old news letters and see if it has anything in them.
Dave ----