The Story 'Till Now, Part Deux: Stopping

 I know I know, anybody that knows anything will tell me that a car only really needs two buttons: Go and Go Faster. And, while I'm quite certain I'd be able to get the damned thing titled and registered at the good ole Nevada DMV without putting a drop of hydraulic fluid into the rusty and bone dry master cylinder, I plan on karting the dog around in this. Friends don't let friends put dogs in danger.

Puh puh please don't let him do this to me

So, this brings us to Part II of The Story 'Till Now. We'll be covering a solid refresh of the braking system - and I'll note it's a far more solid refresh than my original plans or budgets had accounted for. It seems up until the advent of ABS, all cars have more or less identical braking systems. The pedal pushes a hydraulic cylinder which pushes fluid through a bunch of lines out to the brakes themselves where more cylinders push the friction surfaces together. The 1967 Volvo 1800S has a vacuum powered brake booster just past the master cylinder, drum brakes on the rear axle, and fascinating three-pot disk brakes up front.

Start at the Top

This story starts at the master cylinder. Tucked up against the firewall is a brown device, a cylinder with a bowl on top. It's not supposed to be brown. Nobody makes brown car parts. They're black or silver or red or who knows what - and as much as it pains me to say it - brown is bad. I knew this when I bought the car. I had tried to take a peek inside the brake master cylinder only to have the cap shatter in my hand. So, the first part I ever ordered was a shiny new (black!!) brake master cylinder. Some months later, new master cylinder installed, I used my better judgment (for once) and decided to check out the remote brake servo, given it's generally woeful external appearance.

Remove servos look like this

 

Then Work Your Way Backwards

A quick peek inside dashed any hopes of a getting the brakes up and braking any time soon. After ordering a rebuild kit, I found this was a Mark II servo rather than the factory installed Mark I. My rebuild kit wouldn't work, and a kit that would is going to set me back two hundred fifty dollars. Time to regroup and come up with another plan

Some sort of worm must have turned the old fluid into bird poop

The new plan involved fitting a modern remote booster with the same boosting ratio as these ancient British built contraptions. Of course it will have no bolt holes in common with the originals. Hell, it would have no bolt holes at all. A few weeks of procrastinating followed by a day of installing gives me a new booster, installed backwards, mounted in the general vicinity but nowhere near the proper brake lines. Happy days. Luckily, my Friend Who Knows Better was able to get me the proper tools and advice to plumb this infernal new contraption in.

Aftermarket remote brake booster

A Corollary on Brake Bleeding

There is an official way to bleed the brakes outlined in my wonderful Haynes manual. The first step is to enlist the services of an assistant. Sure, you find somebody willing to sit in your ratty-ass old Volvo and pump a pedal for hours on end. See how far that gets you with your friends. After the promise of three foot massages, a fancy dinner, shared custody of the Volvo *and* the dog, and a trip to Tahiti, I coaxed my wonderful girlfriend out to help in the process. Covering the rebuilt hydraulic clutch and all four wheels...

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Holding...
*squirt out two drops of old fluid*
One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Holding...
*two more drops*


...Repeat for the next hour. That my friends is the sound of true love.

Nothing Can Stop Me Now!

A funny thing happened when we bled the brakes. The front wheels stopped turning. Seized brakes, so much for all that Going I had planned. On the bright side, I had foreseen this hiccup and already had sitting on my desk a pair of caliper rebuild kits. Now, a disk brake caliper really is a very simple device. Rebuilding one is damn near trivial. Take it out of the car, pop out the cylinders (use air pressure to help you out, you'll need it), gently pry off all of the old cracked rubber bits, clean thoroughly, polish the guts with some very fine wet sandpaper, reassemble with new rubber bits. Unless of course the cylinders look like this:

Corrosion is bad, mmkay?

In which case you should replace the cylinders or spring for some professionally rebuilt parts. What you should not do is quietly rebuild them anyway and put them back on the car until a convenient rebuilt pair is made available. Remember kids, do as I say not as I do. On the bright side, the sloppily rebuilt calipers work adequately for getting the car into the driveway and back to the garage. This car will not be leaving the driveway until a properly rebuilt set of calipers are installed and the rear wheel cylinders are replaced. That, however, will be a story for another time.