VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1949-1954 1951 WHEEL & MASTER CYLINDERS

I'm wanting to go through the brakes on my '51 Styleline Deluxe, as a maintenance measure, rather than a repair measure for the next owner.

Gene mentioned the use of a smaller bore '54 master cylinder, which he recommended as being helpful.

My question is this ...... is there a supplier out there who can supply U.S.A. manufactured master and wheel cylinders ?

Thanks.

I bought mine for my 52 from a local part store. They should all be able to order them for you. I don't know where they are made.

The cylinders are available most anywhere, but I'm discovering they are China manufactured, thus my initial question as to who may have purchased U.S.A. products.

Unfortunately, it all comes from Asia now. The master cylinders (made in Taiwan) seem to be better than the wheel cylinders (made in China), but neither went on my car.

When I redid the brakes on my '54 2-door sedan, the Chinese wheel cylinders in the front would not allow the brake hoses to be installed properly, without hitting the steering uprights. Not to mention, the bleeders were metric!

Anyway, there are a couple of options on wheel cylinders that I have found. If you are patient with ebay and GM parts numbers, the NOS Delco Morraine cylinders aren't hard to come by (at least, I was able to find some a few years ago pretty easily...things may have changed since) for decent prices. Older stock of Bendix and Wagner as well is out there too. Downside is you have to disassemble these to inspect the insides for rust, because there is no assurance of how they were stored.

Or you can send them to Ron Karp Sleeving, and he will sleeve the master cylinder and wheel cylinders with stainless steel. I believe he will also install rebuild kits from Napa too (these are still USA made as of a couple years ago). The prices were not crazy (unlike White Post Restorations brass sleeving), and Ron was great to deal with. I would highly recommend him and his work.

Website for Karp is http://www.karpspb.com/index.htm and http://www.brakecylindersleeving.com/contact-us.html. I see there are two locations or something close by. Most likely they are the same, but I would contact each until I found Ron Karp, then go from there.

Good luck. It's a shame that there is so much junk out there now, but luckily we still have a few solutions to avoid it.

Back in 1990 I rebuilt the wheel/master cylinder on my 1963 Corvair that had been sitting for 20 years. I honed the cylindres (some even had stuck pistons) and the brakes have been doing fine almost 30 years later. There were pits in the bottoms of the wheel cylinders in the center where the pistons do ot contat but that will not affect leakage.

You might check out Rock Auto. A quick check revealed the AC Delco wheel cylinders are stamped "USA".
If you call them they might be able to give you the sourcing. I agree with Gene--if sub quality Chinese stuff is concerning, rebuilding units locally might be preferred.

I replaced all my wheel cylinders with Autozone units and never had an issue. Bought my master cyl from National Chevy.

Raybestos is the source for those AC Delco brake parts shown. If you look through the Raybestos catalog online, the same stock photos show up (with USA shown on the parts). In the part listing, it shows country of manufacture as China for the wheel cylinders, and Taiwan for the master cylinder.

Bob, I've considered putting the earlier 1" master cylinder on my '54 because I'm not fond of the amount of travel that the 3/4" master cylinder has. Car stops great though, so I just leave it alone. I think the 3/4" bore doesn't require as much effort from the driver's leg compared to the 1".

Interesting info Dana.

I hear of folks wanting to go the other way ...... by using the '54 master cylinder on the '51 and '52.

I did look at Rock Auto, saw a very faint USA on the casting of their pictured wheel cylinder.

Looks like the age of USA made parts for our ole rides is on its way out..

When I replaced the brakes on my car I had the original MC rebuilt and stainless steel sleeved by a local brake shop - real brake shop not a chain store. They could have sleeved it to any diameter. It would be worth a conversation with your local shop. I replaced the entire system with stainless (except the wheel cylinders) and silicone fluid. I couldn’t be happier.

Some Chinese parts are ok. Like everything else--"Made in Japan" back in the 50s-60s meant junk. Now they are in the top rankings for quality. I think stuff made in Vietnam or Indonesia may fit that category now.

Like I said, I've never had a problem with Chinese sourced mechanical parts so far, and for the limited miles my 51 gets driven, it's not an issue. Repro stuff may be another matter altogether IMHO.

No point in looking for problems that aren't there.

Good info Wayne, thanks.

Another poster spoke of sleeving the cylinders, but I thought that would not be an option to me, since the cylinders would have to be sent away to a gent who sleeves.

I'm not going to do the job myself this time, but the guy I chose does brakes, generators and starters, nothing else.

I will contact him, see if he does sleeving, right on his premises.

Good idea for me, Wayne. Thanks.

Thanks Rick and yes, you're correct ...... we can all find problems quickly, without looking too hard or too far.