VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1949-1954 Huck Brake Question

Hey Guys,
I drove my new toy the other day and the brakes were done by the previouse owner, everything: lines, master, hardware, shoes, drums cut. The brakes don't really stop all that well. Does not feel like air in the system, just standing on the pedal and not really stopping like I would like. I was told that it is normal for the huck brakes not to stop as well as the bendix, is that true? I don't have time to figure out the picture thing right now so if you want to look at it just go to the link for the forum I bought it from. 1950 Chevrolet
After I sold my 31 I was looking for a 50-51 Fleetline four door with a three speed, green in similar shape as the 50 I bought, or a Buick same discription, but I DO NOT REALLY LIKE DYNAFLOWS, being there are not many three speed Buicks out there the Buick it would have to be a knock out!. I was not really jumping for joy about the Chevy I bought being a powerglide, but there is just not that much untouched stuff out there to allow for me to be selctive. Anyway, I will have a few questions as this goes along

The Huck brakes from 1936-1948 were what I would consider aduquate. In 1949 they becamme marginal. Same for the 1950 sticks.For The 1950 Power Glides they were terrible. Reason for P.G. is the reduced braking effect with the 3.55 rear end and torque converter transmission. + the added weight of the P.G.
What Chevrolet changed in 1949 was the size of the wheel cylinders, making the fronts slightly larger and ther rears smaller. This was done because the weight was shifted forward with more weight on the front wheels.
What I have done with my 1950 P.G. is install a 1953 master cylinder which has a slightly smaller bore. Helped a little. Then I found a set of brake flooting pins on Ebay. They were an after market device that gave the brakes a slight self energizing feature. A bit more of an improvement. We used to install them years ago when customers complained of the excessive brake pedal pressure required on 1949 and 1950 models, also todays material used in the brake linings may not help.
In 1951 they changed to the Bendix brake. An 80% improvement. In 1953 they went to the small bore master cylinder which added up to a 100% improvement.
A few years back I purchased an under floor dual master cylinder and small power brake boster for my '50 but never got around to installing it.

As I have said before the 1950 Power Glide had the first anti-lock brakes. The magazine tests of the day all mentioned the high pedal pressure required.

They are terrible!

John,

Quit you bitchin. They are what they are. They will stop the car just fine but not as well as a 51 or later.

All you have to do is remember when driving that the brakes will not lock up without both feet on the pedal. (to do that, you put one foot on top of the other.) Thus one has to anticipate stops. Deer and most other wild critters know better than to dart in front of a 36-50 Chevrolet. Chevrolets driven by 46-48ers, Canadians and geese don't. Something about mental capacity, I think. So, watch out for them.

I took a look at the link. That is a fine looking 50. Are you going to soup it up?

Charlie

BTW: See you at Hershey!

Charlie, where I live in the NYC metro area deer or wildlife are not the problem, it's people driving BMW's texting. So I am not worried about them as much as myself! Thats why I sold the 31 I had at Hershey next to you last year, I was afraid I was going to get killed driving it around here



You must have me mixed up with someone else! That is just not my style, I always felt if I wanted to drive a new car I would just drive one, but not make an old one into one. When I want to go fast I drive one of my factory hot rods (read my signature list of cars). To each his own but if I want power I would not even think of wasting my time or money with one of these engines as a starting point, let alone with a powerglide behind it

It looks like a nice car, and a good buy. Find you some later backing plates and convert it to Bendix.
Cleon

John,

I remember that 31. Very nice car. I thought it was one of the quietest running old Chevrolet I'd ever heard. It was so quite that I remember telling you that I thought you had the tappets too tight.

All the folks out there who are trying to figure out how to adjust the tappets on their old Chevrolet need to take a lesson from you.

As to the hot rod thing, your list of muscle cars is what prompted my inquiry. It's truly good to hear your philosophy on not trying to get a car to perform outside of its original build. That is a commendable way to look at it.

Charlie

Charlie,
If the brakes on this 50 are as good as they are ever going to be there is a good chance you will this at Hershey this year. If it were a stick the gears with the taller rear end would help slowing down. Looking for the 51 backing plates can the next owners project. When I came across this car there was a 54 Oldsmobile I was thinking of buying instead, but it was a 4 door and just did not do it for me, oh well

I have to be honest I did do some modifications to my Cosworth Vega, I removed the EFI system and replaced it with a pair of Weber carbs and installed a set of off road camshafts. It is fast for a four cylinder. The blue Vega I use sometimes in my Avatar is an old photo of a car I had in High School

I had the shoes arched for my '50. After having it done it improved the brakes considerably.

More than just backing plates are required....much more.

I figured that, thats why it might be the next owners project

John, I've found that not a lot of folks even stock parts or replacement parts for the 49 & 50 Chevy brakes. As Gene mentioned, there seems to be some oddball stuff for these two model years with the brake system. Even wheel cylinder rebuild kits (for the rears especially) seem to be in short supply. The common answer when asked is "nobody runs the OEM stuff for these cars".



I hope you can get things sorted out with the brakes. Its frustrating, but you'll adjust things and make it livable and original I'm sure. Good luck with your new '50!

I rebuilt the brakes in my 47 Chev Stylemaster (Huck brakes) , I replaced and/or rebuilt everything.
The brakes work really well, I was very impressed, I am using the smaller bore 53/54 master cylinder and DOT 5 fluid. I'm guessing the shoes were relined with soft material which may help a lot !These Hucks can be made to work quite well IMHO :)

As I said in my post, the 1936-1948 were adaquate. The 1949 and 1950 fair and add Power Glide in 1950 and they become poor.
Todays asbestos free linings don't always help either.

Who does this? I never heard of it before

This was a popular part of brake work, through the 50's, but once the 60's arrived, the re-arching or re-arcing of the brake shoes began to disappear, as I recall. Perhaps after bonded lining replaced riveted lining was the cut off time, not certain.

Re-arching equipment can still be found at flea markets and swap meets.

The process improved brake lining to brake drum contact. More square inches of contact, after the process.

The process was declared illegal by the government due to the asbestos dust.....many years back.
If you pull a drum and the linings are making full contact with the drums it is not necessary.

I think the re-arching process disappeared long before asbestos became our legal enemy.

I was arcing brake linings in the mid 70's when I worked in an automotive machine shop after high school. We had "oversize" linings (thicker material) available that would be fit to the drums after cutting or grinding. The AAmco grinder had a vacuum bag that was only good for capturing some of the dust. What a nightmare. Thank God it wasn't a constant all day thing. I tell my wife to this day if I wind up with lung cancer it would be from those few years in the machine shop or the Camel cigarettes I smoked for about 10 years before I wised up and quit them.

Here is a link to a YouTube video showing brake arching. It also shows shows some other brake operations, the arching is about half way through it. This happens to be the same place that did my shoes back in June.

I was looking for a 1950 like my Dad had when we lived in the Bronx when I was younger. If anyone one ever saw the movie a Bronx Tale wih Robert DeNiro the first 15 minutes of that movie minus the mob murder was my childhood. When we moved to the suburbs (sticks) my Dad always had a 49-52 Chevy to commute to work in. It seemed like the streets were full of them for $75 -$200. There were always coming and going. I always remember him not liking the 50 powerlide cars, now I know why. Im not 100% sure but I think I'm going to look for something else and move this along. My 31 was easier to stop with the gears helping me out

I remember seeing the process first hand. A local parts store would cut the drums and then they would "fit" the brake shoes to the inside of the drum.

Once together, adjust and you would have full contact of the brake lining to the drum.

After the shop closed it was next to impossible to find anyone who still had the machine.

So when you do brakes now, if the top and bottom are all that is making contact with the drum, thats all that is trying to induce friction to slow the car. My father would tell customers (he had a repair shop) to please come back as soon as the brake pedal felt like it was lower than it should be. For no charge, we would readjust the brakes and readjust the emergency brake cable and the stopping power would be better by 10 fold.

After that, as long as you came to a full stop in reverse (if it had self adjusters) then went forward the adjuster would lengthen and the brakes would adjust a little each time.

Hucks brakes, as we all know, do not have a self adjust feature so it must be done periodicley.

Before you bail out check the brake wheel cylinders. It is common for the aluminum piston to "freeze" in the cast iron cylinder thus causing high pedal pressure.
Even though they the brake system was "fixed" they may have re-froze.
As far as the Power Glide goes it is no different from the 1953-1973 EXCEPT it must be shifted into low manually to get a good feeling when stating from a dead stop. Chevrolet compared it to starting in seconed gear with a standard transmission car with the P.G. left in drive.
If you would install a 4.11 rear end like the sticks had it would liven up acceleration considerably but then would not be a 65 MPH cruiser.

I don't have high pedal pressure at all, they feel normal, no pull or sway. The previouse owner did tell me he did the brakes and did not like the way they stopped. I think it is just the nature of the beast. They were using pre WWII technolgy in the braking system, which they knew was problem or there would not have been any changes in 51. I hope to sell this Buick Shyhawk I have then I will have some space to look at it closer while in my gararge, not the rental location. My days of swaping out rear end gears are over. I could just imagine the condition of any used stuff I would find for a conversion