I heard at dinner the 2nd test drive did not go so good and no tools to to back off the master from the booster so we dont know if it is the master holding the fluid back or a bad caliper?
I know you said you are going to back the rod between the booster and master 1/2 turn back to where you started but I dont think you ever took it for a test drive as the pedal felt too low.
Guess more adjusting and testing till it feels good.
Dave ----

 

Well it's 2am and I'm working tonight, but I already took the master off, adjusted the rod out 3/4 turn, and reinstalled it, during one of my 15 minute breaks. And thankfully all the fittings at the master and prop valve are still nice and dry. I'm trying to stay positive but I gotta say this is dragging me down! I'm planning to attend the Cars & Waffles cruise in up in Micro on Saturday, so knock-on-wood that I can be roadworthy!

I didn't consider my second trip a test drive, so I didn't bring any tools! lol. I was just running to town for smokes & coffee & car wash had the "oh sheeet" moment a=on the way back as they started to get tighter and tighter. But they never locked to the point of needing me to pull off and may have cooled some as I drove because I avoided touching the brake pedal like the plaque.

In other topics, I slapped a second coat of paint on the floor & back of the drivers side blue pickup, getting it closer to being ready for putting the vinyl mat and seat in. But not quite yet as I need to do a little rust hole repairs on the passenger side. But at least trying to get to a point where I can move it back to my side of the carport and let the wife back in. I told her I was stealing her side for a week, but then between crushing my finger with the crowbar and my 3-day long brake job ballooning into 3 weeks, she's been out in the elements for a month. Now with the new set of wheels there is renewed urgency to let her have her spot back.

 

Nice car John. I hope it does well for yall.

Having owned four modern VW's I will say I'll never buy another. They were so much fun to drive, when they were working. Nice interiors and features when they weren't giving electrical and functional issues.

I spent more time and money chasing problems on every one of them that it got tiresome. Had one Passat that would never cooperate. It was a sweet car too. But failure after failure of sensors, modules, connectors. The ecm went and then had to remove the entire front drivers side interior to access a another module attached to the floor pan and that was the last straw.

They were so nice to drive I kept buying them thinking this one will be better. And they only got worse. I think the oldest Jetta ran the best but still, the windows had a mind of their own, dash lights looked like Christmas even though the car ran fine, just frustrating and not confidence inspiring.

Sorry to give such a poor review after you just bought one. But I still to this day enjoyed driving everyone of them. Just hated owning them.

 

John when you do the waffle run take a wrench and 2 or 4 flat washers.
Loosen the nuts enough on the master to slip a flat washer between the master and booster and see what happens.
If 1 washer dose not work do 2, yea fun when it is just you and you need 3 hands.
If the washer(s) keep the brakes from locking up then you know how much the rod need to be made shorter.

I never told you but I had a 65 VW bug that did the same thing, lock the brakes, let it cool and could move till they were used and got hot.
I had a buddy with me on a test drive, it was summer and hot as he11 and I had 2 ear infections so I was hurting.
Well it locked up 200 yards from the house I was so pissed I tried to run into a tree and it would not move to do that so I punched the radio out of the dash, got out and through the keys at it and walked away.
Buddy did not say a word as we walked to my house. Dad asked how the car was and all I said was it was a POS and it was just down the street and walked away.

Buddy told dad what all happened, both walked down to the car and found the keys. Car did not sit more than 30 min. and drove it home.
Car sat in the back yard for a long time. I started to take the body off the pan for some reason and that was the last of that bug and I was happy.
I hope you dont so the same with the Mustang as I think you car is a lot nicer than that bug was LOL
Dave ----

 

James, my wife bought that VW, not me. This is only her second time to buy her own vehicle, and the previous time was in 1988 when she purchased an 84 Pontiac Sunturd. I think her payments are going significantly higher this time.. I learned my lesson with VW products many years ago, I had an Audi A6 from 2004 til 2012. I loved the car, but when one single timing chain went out and took the head with it, it cost $3800 for repairs and in the end what I got for spending my entire year bonus was one new head; still on the same 260,000 mile engine and still with the same plastic gear tensioner on the opposite head. So my next car was a Nissan, 4 cylinder, easy to work on, cheap repairs, etc. I told my wife, I know you love 'em but they are expensive as he-- when they break, so you gotta have a warranty. I'm hoping she don't learn the hard way! When my Nissan died (transmission went out around 270,000) I got a 2017 Ford truck, basic as can be. Manual windows, I mean the only option it has is AC and that is probably standard now. But the 5.0 is a good engine, I just worry how crappy the transmission is because I know that's the weak point in just about all modern vehicles. If only I could have found one with a manual trans!

Dave that is a fantastic idea, I am going to grab some washers and cut slots in them, so I can just slide them over the stud when I loosen it, just in case. Funny how you gave up on that VW with the problem. I said I had this problem on the Mustang many years ago, I bought a vacuum booster at the junkyard off a Granada and cut holes to mount it, and then I had power drum brakes. And it would always lock up after about 10 minutes or so, so I used to carry a flare wrench to loosen and let the line leak. But I didn't know about the adjuster thingy which in hindsight was probably my problem. I had a frustrating moment as well, one time when it was locking up in pure anger I put all the power in my leg into that brake pedal and POP it burst a hole in the hard line over the rear differential. But for one brief moment it was satisfying to feel the brake pedal give.

Made some repairs to my push-pull bar that I use on the project truck, when it got into a bind it snapped a chunk out of the loop. So I went through my pile of brackets and scraps and found something to jury-rig it.




Good as new! LOL

 

I went on a very long test drive, around 30 minutes, and nothing bad happened. Of course I had the modified washers and tools with me, and it only seems to act up if I leave the tools at home!


Dave, I'm sorta buttoning up some of the drivers side stuff in the 83 F100. Not 100% sure where these connections mount. I have 2 holes and 3 plastic thinga-ma-bobs to shove in to holes, but the distance apart is not making a whole lot of sense.

 

After reading about putting you leg to the brake pedal and blowing a line I forgot I tried that on the bug between trying to hit the tree and failing and punching the radio out because the line did not blow out

On the washer & tools for the Mustang maybe hide them in a lunch bad and sneak them in the car next time
I would still have them handy for a few more outings just to make sure it is good.

On the wire for the truck I dont know just where the holders fit in but I see a hole on the front side of the rear cab mount maybe 1 fits there?
I think that wire is for the seat belt and dome light. I cant look in my truck as I had the carpet and the wire is covered by it.
I will look at the cab sitting on my trailer to see if it will jog the brain matter where it might have ran even without the harness.

Can you look at your parts truck to see how it is ran? That brings up a question?
Are we moving the harness from the parts truck to this one along with all the interior parts?
If so then I cant see putting them in holes as they would need to come back out as I think that is all part of the trucks main harness.

Maybe we need to pick a weekend or weekdays if that works for you too, when a show is not happening to swap the parts over.
The hard part is marking the wires before removing them from the engine bay.
I would poke the wires back into the cab and remove the harness with the dash as the dash is being swapped. That is how I did it and was pretty easy that way.

After my weekly trash run Saturday I got to pull the club trailer out as I need to find voting slips for our show to see how many we have and if Tony needs to get more.
Also if you heard I need to check the pop corn machine as it may have a cracked glass that will need to be fixed before our show as they want to use it and they need to order supplies for it.
I think there was something else but I dont remember what it was now
Dave ----

 

After asking you, I thought the same thing, and went to look at the parts truck and connected to the same holes. Yes one end goes to the seat belt plug, then the other goes up towards the dome light. But I had not thought about it being a waste of time since it's part of the wiring harness to remove.

Andre's Thunderbird has that slow crank or sometimes won't even turn over, when hot, and he thinks maybe it's the starter. O'Reilly checked his battery and said that was fine. I put my volt meter on the battery terminals and it dropped to 10.5v when he hit the key, but that time it did fire up so no further testing or checking. I said maybe if timing is too far advanced it just has a hard time cranking it over, and he said well he has no idea what the timing is set for or what it should be. All he knows is that it runs goods when driving, and sometimes hard to start.

So I brought my timing light and some paint to highlight the marks and it got me confused. Several hash marks but none are labeled! Cranked the engine over with a pry bar just to make sure no other marks, and these are the only ones.


My best guess was that the 3rd hash mark would be 0, with the first and second being 20 and 10 BTDC and the 4th mark being 10 ATDC, so I marked what I thought was 0 and 10. Went to time it and the one I thought was 0 was already on the timing pointer (even a little before it) and so now my best guess is those marks are 30, 20, 10, and 0, BTDC with no marks ATDC. So I was scratching my head and Andre says "you think YOU are confused? I have no idea wtf you are doing!" Well that makes 2 of us
Anyway I think he was 12, and I pulled it back to what I think is 10. Just from googling 390 specs for 1961 it says initial should be 10-12 so there was no big changes it was barely a tweak from where it was before. And I don't think it will make a difference when hot cranking, but since it's intermittent he won't know for a while either. I would definitely replace cables and anything else before starter. Not that his cables look bad, it's just a matter of easier / cheaper before harder / expensiver.

 

Like reading about everyone's projects!

We don't have a project right now except for working around the house. Our base 2003 Tacoma we purchased new is still doing a good job with only 226,000 miles, so far.

 

John
Andre may want to run a voltage drop test to pinpoint where the problem is https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...w-starter.html
I dont like that the battery dropped to 10 volts when trying to crank but the test above will find just were the problem is but my gut is telling me starter as who knows how old it is?

When I started reading about the timing on Andres bird I had to chuckle as I knew just what you would find
A while back I did the same thing, forgot what he did that I checked and adjusted, but the timing was the first thing and seen all the marks.
I dont remember him saying anything about hard starting at the time and no pinging and ran great so I left it were it was.
IIRC I did check that the vacuum & mechanical advance was working.
I adjusted the carb idle mix and speed by ear then for S&G put the tach on and I was on the money, that was the last I heard of anything.

The only way to find TDC is to get a piston stop, mark the crank, then turn it back the other way till it stops and mark the crank again.
Now half way between them 2 marks would be TDC and then you could mark it and figure what the other lines are.

I see you took the Mustang to Cars & Waffles how did the brakes work, I hope they did not lock out this time.

Bill,
I store the car clubs 20' enclosed support trailer and I tow it to shows we host.
At our monthly meeting Thru someone asked if we were going to have popcorn as we have a popping machine in the trailer.
Well it was also said that 1 of the glass panels was broken so I need check if that is so and see about getting it fixed.
Thing is it is parked under a cover and you cant open the doors to get in so I need to hook up to it and pull it out.
The machine is right inside the side door so not bad to get to but who knows where the voting sheets could be?
All this could not have been brought up a week or 2 ago when I had the trailer out to repair a shelf that fell down where the sheet should be.

I do have a 70 AMC Javelin project that I need to send the power booster out for rebuild and when I think of it they are closed so cant call and then I get involved in other things and forget to call
Would not be too bad but it has been boxed up for months. They are only open 4 days a week that also throws me off.
Oh I did spend 3 hours cutting 3/4 of my yard yesterday and no I dont have a lot of trees or bushes just a lot of grass

Now I got to feed the fur kids before they jump me
Dave ----

 

Hey Bill, working around the house is something I should be doing as all my outside projects have gone ignored for a good while. I need to run wires for lights and outlets in my "wood shop" which is what I am calling this metal carport I had installed behind my garage back in February, I need to replace some siding and an outdoor light on my workshop, and probably 10 other things I am forgetting. I told my wife I need a million dollars and a year off work, then I could get caught up!

Dave going for the waffles was a nice long test drive, considering I had to go through Smithfield and Selma to get to Micro. So it got to test how it behaves in stop & go traffic. Twice I felt it pulling, but it never got hot and bound up the brake pedal like before so I am confident now it is far enough back to let the master cylinder relax. But I think maybe there is still some air left in the system, and I have a sneaking suspicion about where that might be. This 4 piston caliper set has a line across the top joining the two sides, and it is above the bleeder. So how does air trapped in this line get out?

Sorry I couldn't make the line any fatter & more noticeable.

After getting back from the Waffee cruise-in in Micro I did a little cleaning up and moving stuff so I could get the 85 out. Has not been touched in 6 months. Took a good while to get it to fire up. I had charged the battery to 100% and by the time she finally did fire, the battery was almost dead! Did not want to idle either at first. I just hosed off the windshield so I could see out of it, went inside for a quick coffee break, then came out to leave and she fired right up and idled with no problem. So she was just being grumpy at me for waking her up


I got some gas and went to the car wash to do a better job of cleaning all the dust and grime off, then I drove to Andre's and we went to Jordana's together. But as we came into Benson, right at the traffic circle, my car just went completely silent. Engine died, no noisy fuel pump. I was blocking the 301 side of the circle. I jumped out to push it onto 50, knowing if I could just make it a little further I could be on the side and not blocking traffic.Every time I would push the car, the wheels would straighten out. I'd run back to turn the steering wheel and the car start to gently roll backwards, and I'd push again and the wheels would straighten out again! Andre saw me but he had to go around the block to get back, but luckily a young guy in a Jeep, he was built like a football player, he jumped out to help push, so I could steer and push from the windshield pillar. Andre finally gets there and says what happened, I said fuel pump died! The button on my control panel was red, I would push it and push it, never turned green. I just rebuilt that pump over the winter. Not sure what caused it. I put my glasses on and noticed "push to reset" in small letters under the button, sure enough it had tripped the circuit breaker inside the panel. I pushed the reset and fuel pump sprang to life. Went down to the cruise-in, and then later on all the way back home with no further problems. I still have no idea why it tripped the breaker, it obviously must have sensed the fuel pump circuit pulling too much amperage.


Driving the 85 reminded me of all the things I still need to do, or want to do; the front blinkers, the fuel sender and gauge, a new tachometer (which, for some unknown reason started working again today, after I left the gas station). So I think I might push the blue pickup into the garage and concentrate on the 85 Mustang for a bit now, so I can go to the track again in a two or three weeks. And Dave if you willing & available to help me move that truck some time tomorrow I would definitely appreciate that.

 

Nice Mustang!!!!!!!!

Do you have a diaphragm pump in addition to the electric pump?

Here's how I bleed my airplane brake system, start at the caliper connecting this bleeder & bleeder adapter on the caliper bleeder, crack a line going to the master cylinder, open the caliper bleeder & pressurize the caliper with brake fluid until the air stops coming out of the cracked line at the master cylinder.

 

John sent you a text to call me when you want to move things around.
I missed you and Andre at the cruise. I was going to tell you to make sure the Stang has gas in it and I see the pump stopped working
Mary and I got there little after 5:30 I think it was.
As I pulled in a guy with a 77 CJ7 pulled in and got talking to him. Gave him 1 of the clubs cards and told about the Decon show.
Asked if we let anything in the show told him yes, said he will try and make it. He did a ground up rebuild on it and kept it AMC power but running a 360 now from a factory 304.

I can see where that line on the caliper could trap air.
What if you were to crack the line at the outer part of the caliper to see if that will help.
Only other thing I can think of would be to remove the caliper one at a time, stuff something between the pads, and then tilt the caliper to help get the air out.
If the factory calipers had that line I dont remember having that much trouble bleeding them on a 68 GT fast back I had when I replaced them but that was 100 year ago LOL

Bill
How dose that seal the bleeder threads to the bleeder as I have seen the threads bleed air when you use a suction type bleeder tool on the bleeders.
Then again I guess if you are pushing fluid from the bleeder to the master leaking bleeder threads is not a big deal other than making a mess from them leaking.
I say this because I have used a suction type bleeder that uses shop air to create the vacuum and it looked like it always had air because of the leaking threads.

John
I thought you had a bleeder bottle that hooked to the bleeder that Norm brought?
Have you given that a try yet? I have a Motive pressure new in box if you think that would work.
It has a bottle you fill with fluid and a plate you chain to the master. You pump up the bottle with the hand pump in the bottle and that pressurizes the full system.
You then crack each bleeder like normal farthest to close getting the air out.
Dave ----

 

Bill, the fuel pump is a magnafuel and there are no other pumps in the system besides this one. I rebuilt it in January, it had started to drip / leak and I read that was an indication of the seal going bad. I drove the car a few times in January and Feb and March but it's been parked since then.


I'm looking at your setup, interesting. But I don't have anything like that. It's a hand pumped tank that pushes fluid backwards through the bleeder right. But why crack a line, why not just let it go backwards into the reservoir and watch until no more bubbles?

I read other people having trouble and saying they removed it and laid it on it's side to gravity bleed before reinstalling and pressure bleeding! I was thinking pressure bleed it again, but this time crack the line open momentarily to see if air comes out.

 

Looks like we were posting at the same time. We got to the cruise in early, around 3 or just a little after. The Pantera guy was there, we talked to him for a little while. The guy with the green Falcon wagon arrived but they all went inside to eat and I didn't speak to him. Sat with Marlene and Dexter the VW guy for a bit, then went over to visit with Tommy and his wife, the GTO couple. She was telling me the car has a terrible whine / grind sound whenever he lets off the gas. He told her the car was "making noise" and took her for a ride, and when she heard it she said "that's not making noise; that's a cry for help!" From what they described I would guess his rear end is on it's way out. I left maybe 4:30 or so, had been a long day and I was ready to come home.

That bleeder Norm gifted me that pushes fluid, I used it at the very start to fill the system. It did make quite a mess though and it was difficult to tell what all was leaking around the rubber nub that goes onto the bleeder vs what might be a leak from the caliper or line. So after it seemed like it was full of fluid I stopped using and moved on to the old "press the pedal then open the bleeder" system.