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Showing content with the highest reputation on 10/27/2024 in all areas

  1. I've been round and round on this topic, not that I think Plymouth brakes are bad or inadequate. They work when in good repair. I don't believe in scrapping what the car came with just to be modern. In my years of experience I know that disc brakes CAN be better but seldom are. I have gone to the trouble of swapping the Plymouth 10 inch drum brakes for Chrysler Windsor 12 inch brakes. This is something I've seen several old timers do and I find it appealing as the car is still all MoPar and period correct. The idea being that I want a car that a dealer mechanic of the time would have built for himself using the best of the MoPar parts bins. An article in the Cascade Pacific Plymouth Club April 2024 news letter caught my eye headlined, "Consider brake booster instead of disk conversion?" by Robin Will. "A young man just across the aisle from us at Portland Swap Meet told me something I didn't know and its worth passing on. He was selling add-on brake booster units. He said that drum brakes themselves are not usually problematic in old cars; the problem was more often with the pressure that could be delivered to them with original equipment hydraulics. Getting a booster on the system can bring old brakes up to current standards without the expense of a disc brake conversion for folks who love to drive their cars every day." What was not mentioned in the article that I know from my experience is that bigger brakes do not lower the pedal pressure required to stop a car. In fact disc brakes don't stop any better than drums because to reach their full potential they require a brake booster. I know I'll get some heat on that statement but I have examples of cars that evolved over time and had drum brakes one year, front disc brakes another year and finally disc brakes with a booster later on. The boosted brakes certainly were better, while the front disc only brakes weren't noticeably better. Bigger drum brakes will have better heat rejection capability and thus less fade. Great for mountain driving or towing or racing but not a dramatic improvement every day. To reach their full potential they need to be boosted as well. Back to what would a period dealer mechanic have on his car? Well Chrysler used a "Remote" Brake Booster on some models. The brakes were all the same except they added this remote booster. The first time I saw such a thing was on a 1968 Volvo P1800 which had one for each brake circuit. I can tell you that car had brakes that worked very nicely indeed. Finding a vintage Chrysler remote brake booster might be an expensive challenge ( not saying it would be impossible but... ) However the aftermarket has substitutes remarkably CHEAP. When you google "Remote Brake Booster" they pop up all over the page for as low as $65 from Walmart of all places! They are imported of course for that price ( China perhaps ) Units that swap out the original master cylinder for an integrated booster/master cylinder are like $500 to $1,100 and I can't imagine they provide as much bang for the buck ( Perhaps "Bang" is not the right word to use when talking about brakes. lol ) If you dive deeper into the suggested usage for these devices they seem to work for similar weight cars like a Plymouth. Since they are small they will fit in the same place as the old Chrysler booster on the left frame rail behind the master cylinder. So there's an idea for discussion.
    1 point
  2. My plan was always to buy a rust free California chassis to put this body on. But there were legalities and expenses and effort required. It was much easier to get it titled here, with a chassis matching the import papers. Also it’s much easier than titling a new construction, to register an already constructed/titled/continuously registered, imported car. That was part of what I was buying. The situation of easy registration. I could have registered it on day one, but it wasn’t safe to drive. Also, I wasn’t privy to the total junkyard “engineering” behind this kit design! Just pan-swapping would leave me nearly in the same place. Re-designing it all but with less rust. Plus I would need to chisel up the stock seat frames, move the pedal assembly mounts, shorten the shift rod, move the shifter mounts, bob the jacking point brackets, then still strip, burnish and paint it all. As they say in Vegas, it was a push. A 50/50 deal. Except for the $$$ and effort to find another titled pre-smog car or pan. Pre-smog cars with title are fetching a premium price. Even the lowly VW. BTW, the longer this takes, the more valuable the P-15 becomes, just sitting.
    1 point
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