VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - GENERAL Trucks and Vans Lets Talk Wheel Cylinders

I've posted this over on the Stoveboldt page but was hoping that, since you all are known to be purests, that maybe someone here had been through a similar exercise.
First of all I’m working on a 3/4 ton Chevy with 12”x 2” Huck rear brakes with 1 3/8” wheel cylinders.
Second of all I’m a bull headed old cus that would rather rebuild something rather than throw-it-away. I think it has something to do with the generation I’m from! Many, many years ago, in another place and time, I worked in the automobile trade as a counter man and machinist, with Chevrolet and in independently owned aftermarket stores. If I remember correctly, I think the line of brake parts we carried were EIC. They supplied kits and individual brake parts in handy boxes, for rebuilding all parts of the brakes such as Bendix adjusters, dust covers, springs, bleeders, pistons, and CUPS! I find that most of the vendors offer most of the parts, except for the CUPS.
I’ve looked on the internet and I have searched all the CarQuest, AutoZone, Napa, etc., stores in my local area and can’t find CUPS. Does any one know of a source for wheel cylinder CUPS? I don’t want to spend fifteen or twenty bucks on a kit, just to get the little rubber cups that are manufactured by the billions and should sell for 10cents each, but are probably two bucks now.

Thirdly, I want to know just how far the cylinder can be safely honed before the standard cup won’t hold pressure. I have been unable to find any literature that addresses this subject. If I could find a site for the manufacturer of the cups or wheel cylinders, I might be able to get an answer to this question. But alas, they are as elusive as the cups are.

I may have to, and I have no problem with, boring the cylinders out to the next size which would be 1 1/2”. I can do that in either the lathe or a Bridgeport mill. There is plenty of meat in the casting so that would not be a problem. In the later case I could finish hone the cylinder to 1.500” exactly so the question of a seal for the standard 1 1/2” cup is a non issue. Besides, the casting numbers on the 3/4 ton and the 1 ton wheel cylinders are the same, the bore is the only difference.
Now I know there are those of you out there that are saying, WHY would you want to go through all of that, when you can buy a new wheel cylinder for $50??? Simply, because I’m retired and I can, that is, if I can find the cups!
Appreciate any feed back, even if its negative.

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

I bought the rubber cups from the local NAPA store.
The piston to cyl. clearence should not be over .003"
Enlarging the wheel cylinder will give the brake stronger force and will not be balanced with the front brake-could cause rear wheels to lock-up sooner.
I would have the cylinders resleved to standard size with brass.Then they will never rust-up again.

Now Gene, if you were going to have the wheel cylinders re-sleaved, just where would you have that done?? I would re-sleave it myself if I could find the sleaves. But that does give me an idea, I can buy brass from McMaster and bore and press it my self, thanks. Yep I thought about the bigger bore on the rear brakes being a little more powerfull, but figured I would only notice it in a panic stop. Seems odd anyway that the stock front brakes are 11" with 1 1/4" cylinders and the rear are 12" with 1 3/8" cylinders.
As far as the cups go, my NAPA dealer looked at me with a blank stare when I asked him for a 1/4" inverted flare union. I finally had to go behind the counter and find them myself. He didn't have a clue when I asked him for the brake cups, you mean the kits is all he could muster???? If it wasn't in his confuser he was lost.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Denny -

The old brake parts you thought were ECI were actually EIS, pronounce ICE.

Raybestos parts counters have a blue metal box with a flip up lid and divided compartments in it that have all of the sizes of the cups made. I have friend who has one of those boxes, full of cups. I would go to a good, old, long time local parts store - not a franchise store, and talk with the owner of the store. He should know what you are talking about. He is usually the oldest guy that is working at the store!

Another place to look would be a brake and/or front end shop that does brake work using Raybestos parts.

There may be other parts "boxes" out the, but I have seen the Raybestos box!

Joe

Hello don't know if they have your size but I have bought wheel cylinder cups only at the CARQUEST store in Sycamore Ill. you are not very far from them. I live in Maple Park.

Wagner is a good brand to look for, I will look tomorrow, I may have some 1 3/8" wheel cylnder kits left over from when I had a Chevrolet truck.I look at the wheel cylinders and usually the rust and corrosion is where the cups don't travel, and that allows you to lifgtly hone the slick surface and rebuild the cylinder with new rubber and pistons. you don't want to take off any amount of metal just even up the surfaces, clean up the hose or tuning threads and replace the bleeder valve with a new one, check with the local brake shops.

Denny,
I have a lot of old brake cylinder kits and cups here. I will check if I have that size cup.

“EIC”, that’s it Joe, thanks, the old memory taint a good as it once was. I did remember the ice part, I just can’t spell worth a dern. I believe somewhere along the line they were absorbed by Wagner, so their gone now also.
There tain’t no old parts stores around here that I know of, they have all fallen to the franchises, CarQuest, AutoZone, Napa. There used to be a place in Chicago called All Brake about 60 miles east of me, might be a possible source, I’ll have to look into it.
In the meantime I’ve been contacted by one of our good members who seems to have a virtual parts room filled with everything and I think he might have some cups for me. They tain’t .10c any more but times have changed.

I’ve got a length of brass tubing 1.5” o.d. x 1.37” i.d. +/- .004, on order and have made a fixture to hold the Huck wheel cylinders in my Bridgeport mill to bore them for the sleeves and re-drilling. I also have a bar of 6061 in the lathe to turn new pistons with and can anodize them when I finish them. Gonna give them .003” clearance, spec is for .002” to .004”. I’ve got four new Huck end cap/adjusters so I think I’m all set here.
Thanks for the advise guys.
“It’s not the time, nor the money only the task at hand that’s important”
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

does any one know a vendor that can sleeve cylinders besides apple hyd. closer to texas have looked on line with no results thanks pushrod

Pushrod, I looked up several places in Hemmings old car magazine when I was interested in having some sleeved, but found I could buy new ones from a guy that came to our swap meet for way less than sleeves cost. I really didn't need many, just for two cars,put in the new ones, using all new rubber. I rebuilt the old ones, bead blast them, run a hone thru them with a cordless drill, and put in new bleeders and haven't had a problem,
I rebuild a set on my 51 without even taking them off the car, washed them down honed them (one of my hones has a flex shaft)no problems. I also got a new pair on eBay made in Italy for less than $25 for the pair, and I had two parts cars and a rear end from a car in Mo. so I am doing ok now, probably will be set for the rest of my driving life.
I rebuilt two master cylinders and they are good as new. I have a couple master cylinders put away, none for Powerglides, just remember to use new rubber, the NOS stuff is no good.
I had more problems fixing the 53 after I bought it, the shoes were looser than a goose,three of the 4 were leaking, ruined the paint on the wheels, the bad part with two of them were the old hoses and one had a bad bleeder valve. I have bought two cars in Kansas and have had holy hell with both of them, till I got them fixed instead of patched and band-aided.
I haven't took Hemmings for several years, but I got a renewed subscription for Christmas, the check has cleared, but no book so far. I enjoy reading all the classifieds during these cold winter days and evenings.

I don't understand why anyone would hone and reuse his wheel and master cylinders, nor can I understand why he would buy NOS or NORS and use them. THEY ARE JUST GONNA RUST AND PIT AS BEFORE.

Use your old wheel cylinders and master cylinders and have them sleeved with brass or stainless. Use new modern cups and you have solved your brake problem for as long as you own the car, assuming you flush them out and use new fluid occasionally.

Just don't have them done by an outfit in North Central Virginia, unless you want them to leak better than ever!

Ray, because it works for me! and I know it is done right. Besides...We all aren't rich like you old retired GIs!

Continuing on with that talk about wheel cylinders. Here's Chapter two: Is that Wheel Cylinder worth Savin’??
I’ve posted this pretty much verbatim on “the other forum” but thought that a few of you might not frequent that site. Being a new member of VCCA I thought that some of the other new members might find it interesting if there is a brake job in their future.
So here’s what a lot of you are gonna find after ’56 years of use, am I correct?
http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2213841560098611668BwvTtz
All four cylinders looked like this, and it makes me wonder if the bottom of the PO shoes were worn out, cuz I can’t see how the hydraulic brakes were stopping the truck.

Now here’s what ya can do with those cylinders, that is if ya have a mind to;
http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2288635180098611668HkoLar
http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2623085370098611668ETUIML
http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2059940080098611668pTgfer
http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2436294140098611668jEawjQ

These are off the rear of my ’50, 3604. It would have been more cost affective to just buy a couple of new cylinders since they are apparently available for about fifty bucks each plus the shipping. To have them re-sleeved would have run me from $60-$90 each, depending on the rebuilders. But nooooo, I just had to see if I could bring these back to life by re-sleeving them myself! Actually the hardest part was finding the rubber cups. I never did find a source for new cups and ended up buying the whole W/C kit from one of the vendors for $15 each, plus S&H. The only parts that I used from the kits were the cups.
The mill is a Bridgeport, the sleeve is from McMaster Carr, and the Alum plug is for installing in the press. The sleeves were a press fit into the re-bored cylinder and a thin coating of the JB Weld was just added insurance against leakage. I’m not sure if any of it even remained after pressing the sleeves in. The cylinders were final fit to the pistons with a wheel cylinder hone flooded with a Kerosene bath. Then the re-sleeved cylinders were washed in alcohol and reassembled.
Ya see Ray, the thing is, next time around I figure I’m all fixtured up and ready to go. Now if I could only find those damn new cups for less than ten bucks each, this might justify all the work involved.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
p.s. Ross from Maple Park, ya ever run across a guy named Kenny Schultz up there??

I think sleeving is an excellent idea to eliminate pitting of wheel cylinders and the consequent failure of the seal interface beteen the cup and cylinder ID. As far as the sleeve material, a 300 series stainless steel is best due to its extremely high resistance to corrosion. The next best choice is a 400 series stainless steel which is corrosion resistant but not quite as good as the 300 series stainless. I would consider a brass sleeve to be my third choice as it is the least corrosion resistant of the three materials. The small incremental cost of using a 300 series stainless steel as compared to brass makes it the ideal choice of materials. In a production environment where an engineer makes the decision to design a corrosion resistant component into an assembly, using brass might save the company tens of thousands of dollars because of the large number of pieces to be used, but if an individual is making the effort to enhance the longevity of their wheel cylinders and is already going to spend a chunk of change to make the improvement, why not pay the small incremental cost of using 300 series stainless over brass?

mack i have found if you use the cylinders often using new cups and a light hone works but i have several older cars and a truck that that sit and have to be redone when i get ready to use especially the ford winch truck that has a hydraulic clutch . i have had the corvett cylinders sleeved and no problems it is not the cost but the inconvence of going to use the old chevy and the master cylinder is leaking especially the 54 it is not easy to get out and rebuild not getting any younger . i had the corvett sleeved by a shop in the dallas texas area but cannot find the adress

I too have found that just getting the cups is getting more difficult but kits at the discount parts stores are cheap,I try to find a modern vehicle that has the same size cups and get those kits and newer wheel cylinders wil fit the older ones. For example when I rebuilt the rear brakes in my 53 olds autozone had no listing for it so I got wheel cylinders for a 78 chevy 1/2 ton truck which bolted in and had the same size pistons as the originals,all I had to do was bend the line a little and I was done and spent less then 10 dollars a piece for the wheel cylinders instead of 35 dollar for the so called correct ones. Jeff