My 67 Plymouth Fury VIP has factory drums front and rear. The entire car has 14,410 original miles. The brake light has been lit up on the dash since I got her. The brakes performed badly to say the least.. pedal spongy or all the way to the floor. So far I have done the following:
- installed 4 new wheel/slave cylinders.
- Had the factory brake booster rebuilt.. beautiful job by Mr. Booster Dewey at Power Brake Booster Exchange in Portland. Included in the rebuild was a re-anodizing & zinc plating of booster housing and master cylinder lid to factory finish.
- Had the factory master cylinder over bored and stainless sleeved to factory 1" diameter.. beautiful master machine work by Brad over at Brake & Equipment Warehouse in Minneapolis. They also did an exceptional job powder coating it to its original factory gray finish.. all for $120
- Then I rebuilt the master using a complete Mopar NOS rebuild kit including new pistons, springs, brass seats, valves and lid gasket..all rubber was in perfect shape.. $30 for kit on ebay.
- I bench bled the master.
-Reinstalled booster and master
-With the help of a friend, we proceeded to bleed the system.. This was about a year ago and I don't remember which, but the flow/bleed was only trickling out at either the front or rear, I think it was the rear. We bled each wheel in the correct sequence until we got a hard pedal, refilling the cylinder as necessary.
But, the pedal became very spongy again on the first test drive around the block, and the brake warning light remained lit. We bled them again. Same result. My friend then suggested that I needed to change the brake distribution valve (which some erroneously call a proportioning valve.. mine is a distribution block). At the time I knew nothing about how the brake pressure differential valve trips/shorts out the brake warning switch/sensor- turning the dash light on. Sooo, instead of figuring out how to reset the switch, I went hunting for a new distribution block. For my year and model there were NONE being manufactured.. so I searched & searched and finally found an NOS brass block still in the box online at AMS Obsolete... for a mere $289.50! They also sold me an NOS Tee-block for the rear lines. I then purchased new factory correct brake hoses.
A year has gone by and I'm back at it.. getting her up to speed once and for all (and not just brake stuff).
I still have these parts unused in their boxes.. which leads me to some questions for the brilliant minds of FCBO members..
1. How do I reset the pressure differential valve/move it back over to center? I've heard a couple of methods mentioned around youtube.
Any experience with successful results?
2. Once the valve is reset/centered, I'll apparently need a doo-hickey 'brake bleeding tool' that screws in to replace the brake warning switch, which will lock the pressure differential in place while I bleed the lines. Once bled, then this 'tool' is removed and the warning switch replaced. I'm confident this will work.. So where do I get this 'screw-plug-lock-tool' that will fit my car?
And one last thing- will taking it out after bleeding to put the switch back in allow air to enter the system?
Much obliged in advance!
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