1949 Ford Shoebox Gets New Brakes

A few months back, I was backing the Ford out of my driveway. When I went to mash the middle pedal it went to the floor. No Brakes. Thankfully, I hadn't built up enough steam to continue rolling into my neighbor's yard. And thankfully I have insurance on the old Ford that provides towing when it breaks down. A quick phone call and a short tow ride later, and the Ford was 

This video documents the work I did putting a fresh brake system under my old Ford. I had to learn a lot as I went. The most intimidating part was learning to flare the ends of the new brake lines. There are pre-bent brake line kits available for this car but I looked at the money I'd spend on the kit, versus buying the line and borrowing tools and it was about 10% of the cost. However, it is 100% more hassle to do it yourself!

In the process of diagnosing the failure I narrowed it down to a leaky wheel cylinder and water in the system. After bending up and flaring new lines, and replacing all the wheel cylinders and master cylinder, I found out that one of the brand new wheel cylinders leaked like crazy. Go figure. After that the next weakest link failed.I over-tightened the secondary bend on one of the double flares. I learned an important lesson here. I needed to leave a little "mush factor" (pretty sure that's the proper term for this) in the flare. That way the end of that line can mate perfectly to its intended fitting. 

After a couple set backs, and a significant amount of time in the lift, I had all the bugs worked out. Since I bought the car, I've always considered the brake system a little dodgy. Now it's moved down the list of things to worry about while driving my old Ford. Thanks for reading me and enjoy the video. 

If you want to support this blog please use my amazon associates link to do your online shopping: amazon.com