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Are they the single piston calipers Harv? We’re on my HX van. Worked fine until one of the slide/attachment bolts fell out on the SE freeway one day at Monaro. Best bit was getting the van, full of tools, trailered by a 161 hr ute. Murray Bridge RAA contractor.


FB ute fixer upper, EK van on rotisserie

Yep, single piston HX-HZ PBR alloy calipers.

The frustrating bit at the minute is not being able to duck out and buy bolts, hoses etc to finish a task off. Trying not to jump too far around on this one... got too many things in pieces as it is.

Cheers,
Harv

Still can't get out to buy the front brake hoses, so decided to throw the master cylinder in. It needs to be dual circuit, and look kinda period correct. Some discussion with the gents at Hoppers Stoppers led to this one.
Its a Protex JB1217, with 1” bore so the rear drums will be happy. The mounting surface is a spigot fit, with bolt centres within 1mm of the original master (near enough to bolt straight up once the firewall is hole-sawed for the spigot). Thought it would be touch-and-go on clearance to the bonnet springs, but it clears! Happy days - a near bolt-in dual-circuit master for FB/EKs

Had to take 0.4" off the pushrod length, as the spigot moves the pushrod contact point inboard (you can just back off the pushrod, but the pushrod threaded end bottoms out on the pedal arm before you get freeplay at the master). Probably wants another poofteenth off the length to account for my missing brake pedal rubber bumper (it was brittle, and did not survive the fit-and-fiddle). Need to be a little careful too on the fittings. The threads on the ports are M10x1.0 inverted flare, not UNF like the rest of the car. Flares up fine though on normal 3/16" tube.

There is a VH40 ready to go onto the front circuit, though undecided yet where to put it. Suspect that real estate under the bonnet will be pretty sparse with the dry sump tank and huffer on that side of the motor. Might have to put it under the guard with some form of stone shielding. A word for the unwary - the VH40 has weird fittings too. The pipe fittings are UNF ball, not double flare. Easy to make (a ball flare is just the first pressing of a double flare).

Cheers,
Harv

Thought the VH40 were double flare which may explain why I always have trouble getting them to seal

FB ute driver, EK van project

I didn't know they were ball flares either till I read through the VH40 manual (figured I needed some ejukashun). Saw the diagram below, which made me go and look at the one I bought. Sure enough, the castings are drilled for ball flare. Needs the adaptor-er for double flare.


(as an aside, the XA/B/C master cylinder in my wagon uses ball flares too).

Cheers,
Harv

Adapter-or? Will I nivver!


FB ute fixer upper, EK van on rotisserie

A little more progress, in among other stuff.

The plan is to put the VH40 booster up under the guard, as real estate is going to be sparse under the bonnet. Most of the work that a booster does is due to the vacuum from the engine. However, the booster does still suck in (and breathe out) air . There is a round air filter on the VH40, that normally lives happily in the engine bay. When mounted under the guard, the breather is not so happy, and gets covered in mud, water and crap. To sort this out, a remote breather is used (this was also a factory PBR option). The remote breathers are not so easy to get genuine, but are made by Resleeve Engineering (Peter Brown, 0407847167, resleevengineering@gmail.com):


Easy to fit - take a flat blade screwdriver, prise off the wire clip on the front of the breather and catch the breather cover as the little retaining spring makes everything go Sproing!. Replace the cover with the remote breather, and refit the wire clip.


You can now fit a length of hose to the remote breather, and put it into the engine bay. Fit a small air cleaner/filter over the end (you could get fancy and run it into the engines air filter). I've left the hose off for now, as until I mount the head, huffer, drysump tank etc I'm not sure where the spare space under the bonnet will be.

A little fancy bracket work...

... and the VH40 bolts up under the guard.

[attachment=0]


This bracket template is handy, as it uses the factory headlight wiring hole as a locator. Apologies that the under-guard photos above have been rotated.

Cheers,
Harv

Also managed to get over to Burt Brothers and pickup the hoses:


They have funky ends on them to turn the hose... standard hoses tend to point the hose into the front suspension spring coils at full lock :


The hose ends go into the old bleed screw location (same problem... use the original hose holes and they point into the spring coils). I had hoped to use the old hose hole on the caliper for a bleed screw, but don't think I will get away with it. The holes are drilled deeeeeeeeep into the caliper, and there is a pretty good chance that the pointy end of the bleed screw touches the piston. For now, I'll block them off with plugs (ignore the rubber o-ring... copper washers to come).


But how do you bleed them if the bleed screw is not at the high point? Easy-peasy. Take the caliper off (leave the hose on), put a block of wood between the pads, turn the caliper so that the bleed screw is at the top, then bleed them. Reinstall. Now, with a plug in place, that is going to be harder, but not insurmountable. Bleed, bleed, bleed then screw the plug in. Messy, but doable.

Cheers,
Harv

You remember to bend the brake booster line the right way.
You take your time and make it follow the inner guard neatly.
You remember that the flare nuts are the UNF ones on the booster end, and metric ones on the master end.
You remember to put the flare nuts on before flaring.
You remember that the master end is an inverted flare and the booster end is a ball flare.


You bolt is all up, only to find the booster flare nuts bottom out. Its only then that you remember that the booster flare nuts are the long (deep) ones, not the short (shallow) ones.

Swear, cut, reflare, refit.


Cheers,
Harv

You know the rules Cob, a job isn't done until it's been done twice ....... at least

Lucky you had room to cut the flare off, fit longer nut and reflare. You got off easy.


FB ute fixer upper, EK van on rotisserie

Errol62 wrote: Thu Nov 11, 2021 3:38 pm Lucky you had room to cut the flare off, fit longer nut and reflare. You got off easy.

I have a large collection of bent, 6" lengths of bundy tube where I was not so lucky in the past

Cheers,
Harv

Blacky wrote: Thu Nov 11, 2021 2:18 pm You know the rules Cob, a job isn't done until it's been done twice ....... at least

Too bloody true that!!!

I’ll be learning how to bend bundy tube myself soon.
I’m guessing I’ll need double the anout of what I estimate just to cover my stuff ups!

6 metre or 20ft lengths are the go.south glenelgbrake service near you will sell you straight lengthsbut dearer. Car parts plus have coils.

FB ute driver, EK van project

I went to a brake place here in Perth to buy a roll of bundy tube - they wanted $85 I went to Coventrys and go ta roll for $18.