brake upgrade

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Oct 22, 2004
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Clemson, SC
Hey I've got a 68 fj40 with the one brake cylinder and I am wonderin how hard it is to replace it with a brake booster and double cylinder? Thanks for the help.
 
it can be done and i hear not that hard, your 68 has the rib on the firewall if i remember correctly so you will have to make a bracket or cut the rib, a buddy of mine built a bracket for his 64 and used i think brake vacum can and master from toy or nissan pickup. you will have to make or find rod from pedal to master to actuate it, have you looked in the tech section or done a search i know i have seen it in hear some where that some one was selling an adapter for this setup i think. i am sure some one who can help will chime in.
 
If you're still running an F motor, the bracket will need to be used with a very shallow brake booster and master. Perhaps mixing a booster from a minit truck or early 70's Cruiser and an '80's style MC. The problem being that the carb will interfere with the master cylinder.
Were it my Cruiser, I would cut the brace and weld in some new bracing, or just leave it out. I don't think that last 12" of bracing is doing very much structural reinforcement.

-Dustin
 
CruisinTiger said:
Hey I've got a 68 fj40 with the one brake cylinder and I am wonderin how hard it is to replace it with a brake booster and double cylinder? Thanks for the help.


if it were me i would stay with the single port brake cylinder, theres nothing wrong with them. But if you want to go to a doudle go for it, i would leave the brake booster out of it. What happens when your motor dies going down or up hill. all of the sudden its like 50 times harder so stop. Just adj. your wheel cylinders there are the best breaks in town, i can lock up all 4 at like 45MPH.
 
hey rogers, now I'm kinda speakin before thinkin, but the advantage of the double cylinder is to have the front brakes on one cylinder and the back on the other. If I'm wrong let me know. Also what does the booster do exactly, I'm assuming give extra stopping power when the engine is goin. I think I know what you're talkin about 50 times harder, when you are goin, turn off the engine and hit the brakes to stop comin into a parking space for example. thanks
 
most any toyota, from a celica, to a minitruck, to a '70's and newer cruiser (any one as far as I know. The 80 and 100 series may not work though).
As for sticking with a single cylinder brake set up, my opinion is:
On the older cruisers, the ONLY thing I dont like about older cruisers is that all the brakes are wired into one line. If you have one leaky wheel cylinder go out- all your brakes go out. Scarry. Imagine being on that steep hill, with or without a powerbooster, your stall your motor, slam on the brakes (hard) and then POP!. You just blew out a wheel cylinder and now all your brakes are gone, your engine is off, and youre rolling back. If you had two master cylinders, atleast you'd have one set of brakes to keep you from rolling. Same kinda situation if youre heating the brakes up on a long downhill. As soon as one wheel heats up and brake fade sets in, all youre brakes are gonna be toast.

As for the booster, I have had the motor off and needed to use the brakes. Its not great, but you can still stop. As for the other 99.99% of the time when the motor is on, and I am using my brakes aided with a power brake booster- my leg is much happier than when I really have to squash the brakes on a non-boosted brake set up.

--Dustin
 
hey dustin have you done the conversion? what does the booster hook up to, I'm tryin yo picture it in my head and where everything goes. Is it an electrical thing or mechanical/hydraulical thing with the engine hook up. And I'm runnin an f engine
 
The booster works off of the engine vaccum, I think that is what you are asking . It has a line/hose running from the engine block/head/vavle cover to the booster, giving it vaccum. Then on the inside of the cab the booster has a rod connecting to the brake pedal..........
 
JP that's the hose that is runnin off the top into the carb, would I have to get a T fitting to run both hoses? did rich get an extra brake booster set up with his 55? Hell who cares at the rate he's goin it'll be 10 years before he ever gets that thing runnin, we'll just use his he'll never know.
 
Mine actually is connected to the top of the vavle cover if I recall correctly, and yeah just steal from richard I think he has got to have some in that huge pile of Sh@t in the garage............ actually me and lee gave him till x-mas to get his cruiser together or we told him we were going to haul it away so we will see.......................
 
I dont think running a vaccume line off the valve cover will work, would it..? I *think* you need more vaccume than the valve cover can muster, especially if youre piston rings have ANY blow by at all. Infact, my old F-motor had so much blow by that the cover was always puking oil out it anyway- the opposite of suction (vaccume).

-Dustin
 
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