New wheel cylinders or resleeve ?

[FLYER15015]

Hi All,

I am getting ready to rebuild the brake system on my 1931 Chrysler Imperial (CG?).

I can have the wheels and master cylinder re-sleeved  @ Karp's in California, as they did a fine job on my '40 Buick series 90, with their 304 stainless inserts.

OR can I find new replacements for this old of a car ?

Do not want to buy NOS and get 87 year old rubber components.

 

I am just learning about the old girl and need your advise regarding sourcing and costs.

 

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

Mike in Colorado

 

 

 

[Spinneyhill]

You can replace the old rubber parts cheaply for a NOS cylinder, should you find a cylinder. I would.

 

The SS sleeved cylinder will be more of a problem for galvanic corrosion of the aluminium piston if you don't use the car for long periods. This is because SS and aluminium are further apart on the galvanic series than steel and aluminium. Of course this is not a problem if you are using DOT 5 (silicon) brake fluid, which doesn't absorb moisture like DOT 3, 4 and 5.1 do. (DOT 5.1 absorbs least moisture of these three.)

 

When the aluminium piston corrodes, it jams in the cylinder. The result is that the first time you apply the brakes, they stay on. The return spring is not strong enough to overcome the jamming of the piston.

[JFranklin]

I am a believer in DOT 5 silicone brake fluid. If you go with it make sure to flush all the lines and parts with denatured alcohol thoroughly. I think old rubber if stored carefully, is sometimes better than some new stuff I've seen.

Edited September 28, 2018 by JFranklin
Added thought (see edit history)

[auburnseeker]

I can't believe anyone redoing old car brakes now a days even considers using anything but silicone. Every car I have ever done and some are now over 20 years being done,  I have never touched the brakes again as compared to all the cars I have bought that have 5 year old and less brake jobs where every cylinder is rusted up so you throw all those less than 5 year old parts out and replace them again.  You may have to get the cylinders resleeved unless you get lucky enough to find new ones.  I doubt they are making new ones and NOS ones might be tough to come by.  If yours aren't badly pitted and can be honed out,  I would go that route.  Use the silicone and they will never need to be done again. 

[FLYER15015]

All above is correct, in that IF I have Karp's re-sleeve these using the 304 stainless tubing the DOT 5 fluid is the only way to go.

When I did the '40 Buick this way, about 6 years ago I cleaned the metal brake lines with MEK and replaced all the rubber connector lines after blowing them out.

 

My real question is, has anyone sourced replacement wheel cylinders and if so, where ?

When you get into the '40's, a guy can just run down to NAPA and get parts.

Can you do this with '30's cars too ?

Or will Dodge / Plymouth wheel cylinders interchange, and if so what model years apply ?

Or do I have to buy parts from the expensive "restoration" suppliers ?

 

I really need to hear from someone who has walked this path before.

 

Mike in Colorado

Edited September 29, 2018 by FLYER15015 (see edit history)

[JFranklin]

Have you checked with Kanter products? If they are still doing business they would have new ones.

[FLYER15015]

Kanter shows no listings for wheel cylinders or master, but thanks for the lead.

 

Mike in colorado

[Spinneyhill]

Have you looked for a cylinder?

 

This from oldmoparts.com - Bernbaum in other words. The superscript 1 means "front and rear".

[Taylormade]

Well, I know the Bernbaum parts won’t fit the rears on my 32DL.  Call them and get the song and dance about drilling your backing plates so they will fit.  I don’t know why they continue to list them when they are wrong.  A guy on eBay is always listing a set of four and they have the same problem.  The rear cylinders have an odd spacing between bolt holes and no one seems to have them. I had my original cylinders sleeved.

[FLYER15015]

Taylormade,

I agree with you on folks selling parts on evilbay that they say will fit, and don't, and then it's a pain to send them back.

 

I found a website last night called "Plymouth parts interchange Group 5" that may hold some promise.

It shows NAPA, Wagner, and Raybestos interchange #'s for the master and wheel cylinders, and makes mention of Dodge, Desoto, and Chrysler interchange #'s too.

 

Today we start tearing her down to take a good look see.

I will post pictures of our progress as we go along, to help those who follow.

 

Still looking for a front right dust cap to replace the "REO" one that is on her now.

Anybody want to trade ?

 

Mike in Colorado

[Spinneyhill]

Roberts say they have wheel cylinders. You would need to ask the size and check the mountings.

[FLYER15015]

2 hours ago, Spinneyhill said:

Roberts say they have wheel cylinders. You would need to ask the size and check the mountings.

 

 

Robert's ???

 

More info please, for this Chrysler beginner.

 

Mike in Colorado

[keiser31]

19 hours ago, Taylormade said:

Well, I know the Bernbaum parts won’t fit the rears on my 32DL.  Call them and get the song and dance about drilling your backing plates so they will fit.  I don’t know why they continue to list them when they are wrong.  A guy on eBay is always listing a set of four and they have the same problem.  The rear cylinders have an odd spacing between bolt holes and no one seems to have them. I had my original cylinders sleeved.

That made me go out and compare the new Bernbaum cylinders I just got for my 1931 DB. Luckily, mine have the same bolt pattern front and rear. WHEW!

[Guest]

46 minutes ago, FLYER15015 said:

Robert's ???

https://www.robertsmotorparts.com/trucks

Your search engine is your friend.

[Spinneyhill]

What he said ....

[FLYER15015]

Thanks Tin for the lead.

So "Roberts" wants about 50 bucks a cylinder that I may (?) find @ Autozone /NAPA, for about eighteen bucks.

All is just speculation till I get her torn down and pull the cylinders to get a good look see.

 

Hey Spinney, you ever hear from Grant McGrath any more ?

Haven't seen him post on the Buick forum in a long time now.

 

Mike in Colorado

 

[Taylormade]

Same problem with Roberts, but they were totally up front about it and didn’t claim to have the correct cylinders. Keiser31, I’m surprised the 31 and 32 are different.  I never noticed until I received my cylinders and discovered the difference.  It’s slight - so slight I can’t imagine why the bothered to make them different.  Just a slight difference in the bolt hole spacing.

[24Chry48]

  A lot of the parts people list parts for Chrysler and Dodge, etc. but the Imperials used larger parts and nothing interchanges with the standard lines of cars.  Your easiest way is to take your original cylinders and have them sleeved by a reputable company that does this. If your original cylinders are broken or otherwise unusable, some of us may have replacement cores to rebuild, but yours should be salvageable. Your 31 imperial is going to be challenging to find parts for, but they are out there and the car is a masterpiece of an automobile and is worth all the hard work.

Greg Biskey

[hchris]

Been down this road recently with my 34 CB Chrysler, the only viable option was a resleeve.

 

Thing to note however, as well as the mount plate spacing problem,  the rear cylinders are step bored ie smaller at one end of the cylinder than the other, Chrysler`s logic to rear lockup prevention (would`nt be surprised if yours were the same)

 

Our brake guru machinist advised that the amount of difference this would make in a slam stop would be insignificant, hence they were resleeved parallel and so far all is well.

 

I too get annoyed when you ask a question and don`t get an answer, but you do get a heap of off topic advice.

[FLYER15015]

Sooooo, taken all the above, and baring any new solid info, I am leaning towards pulling all the cylinders, wheel and master, and sending them to Ron Karp in California for re-sleeving, and per Hchris, have a constant size bore in the wheels.

When he did my '40 Buick LTD about 6 years ago, it solved all my problems and I would highly recommend them to anyone with brake issues.

[Spinneyhill]

I always thought the step bore cylinder was an attempt to even up braking effort on front and rear shoe. The trailing shoe does much less work on our fixed anchor simplex system. This is from Wikipedia:

By putting a larger cylinder on the trailing shoe, the effort  from the shoes can be evened up a little. A 1-1/4 to 1-3/8" diameter increase makes a 21% increase in the force applied to the rear shoe. This is hardly "not much effect" as people have been advised.

[hchris]

12 hours ago, Spinneyhill said:

I always thought the step bore cylinder was an attempt to even up braking effort on front and rear shoe. The trailing shoe does much less work on our fixed anchor simplex system. This is from Wikipedia:

By putting a larger cylinder on the trailing shoe, the effort  from the shoes can be evened up a little. A 1-1/4 to 1-3/8" diameter increase makes a 21% increase in the force applied to the rear shoe. This is hardly "not much effect" as people have been advised.

 

Correct, I was over simpliying things in an attempt to highlight that the cylinders were step bored, there is in fact a whole lot more to the science of this feature but I didnt think it was relevant to the topic. 

Mea Culpa.

 

[FLYER15015]

Question,

If a step bored cylinder was so great, how come it did not become standard fare with all of the big 3, all the way up to the disk brake take over point ?

Was science over ruled by the bean counters ?

DUH ??????

 

Mike in Colorado

 

[Bloo]

6 hours ago, FLYER15015 said:

Question,

If a step bored cylinder was so great, how come it did not become standard fare with all of the big 3, all the way up to the disk brake take over point ?

Was science over ruled by the bean counters ?

DUH ??????

 

Mike in Colorado

 

 

Because at the disk brake takeover point, fixed anchor brakes like the ones in Spineyhill's graphic were long gone.

 

The front shoe on such a system, Lockheed in Chrysler's case, tends to "apply" itself on braking in the forward direction, while the rear shoe wants to "unapply" itself. Step bores were an attempt to even things out. IIRC Ford also did it on their fixed-anchor brakes, along with a shorter piece of lining on the rear shoe.

 

Lockheed soon fixed this by splitting the cylinder in two, and putting the second shoe and anchor on upside down. Now you have 2 leading shoes with equal braking ability. You will see a bunch of later Chrysler products with this type on front. By then, IIRC, the rears were just allowed to be less efficient (no step bore) because they don't do near as much of the braking as the fronts do.

 

A competing system to Lockheed (and Chevrolet's "Huck", and Ford fixed anchor brakes) was Bendix "servo action" drum brakes. These have a floating anchor (actually no anchor) at the bottom. When the front shoe tries to "self apply", it pushes on the rear shoe, applying it too, as if it were all one big shoe. These appeared in the 30s on Pontiacs, Buicks, Lincolns, etc. They take less pedal effort than Lockheed typically do, but the self-application adds a tiny delay. They feel a little funny. Lockheeds are much harder to set up, but when really right, feel solid and linear like disc brakes, but require more pedal effort.

 

The Bendix design literally took over. By the 60s even Delco was making them. When disc brakes came along in a big way, the fixed anchor system was long gone, and the step bore, a workaround for a known limitation, was long gone with them.

Edited October 3, 2018 by Bloo (see edit history)