I closed up shop tonight with a minor victory.
I pulled the pump
again and took it apart
again. I took the O ring from another pump and put it all back together. NO leaks and the steering works like it should.
One thing that is a trait of mine is the determination to never leave meat on the bone. I don't like to lose and I don't like to give up.
This has good and bad elements to it. The good: I usually prevail and am glad that I followed through. The bad: When I keep at it
while pissed off and intolerant, I'm probably not doing my health any good with all the yelling, cussing, cuts and scratches and such.
The pump that failed this morning was working fine yesterday but when I took it apart, I found the flow control valve and valve spring pushed way to the front.
If you haven't taken one of these apart, here we go:
Here is the back side. You can see the bracket mounts at approx 11 and 5 o'clock. These serve two functions. They hold the pump into the reservoir and they are a mounting point for the brackets.
There is a return nipple and at the bottom, unpainted is the union fitting that serves a few functions.
The fitting serves as the port to attach the pressure hose and also holds the following in place:
The flow control valve on the right determines the amount of boost that the pump will make. Rick Ehrenberg of Mopar Action magazine stumbled upon this discovery something like 10-12 years ago.
Take note of the picture below.
The green arrow points to a 7/16" headed bolt that screws into the valve. The red arrow points to a thin washer that fits under the head of the bolt.
V8 cars usually got one washer, the slant six cars got more. The more space between the head of the bolt and the valve, the
lower the boost. Rick experimented with different amounts of washers to reduce the boost to an amount that he felt was acceptable. This trick has been covered in the forums before. From my memory, the
most you'd want is .125 thick of washers. Beyond that, the pump starts to get choppy/notchy especially at idle with big tires.
I left just the one washer in place in the pump I just put in.
Regarding the brakes. Barring some miracle or intervention, I'm ditching the hydroboost. This unit is probably defective and I don't know if I have the patience to swap in another even if Dr Diff would be willing to send a second one.
I have a few ideas on what I might do.
I have the aluminum 15/16" manual master cylinder but I have a suspicion that it may not be adequate and may require too much leg pressure to stop. I want to teach Mary to drive a stick and that means that she will also need to stop the car without breaking a leg.
Modifying the brake pedal lever by drilling a hole above the stock hole improves leverage. I will probably do that if I switch to manual.
If that isn't enough, there is always a dual diaphragm vacuum booster and a vacuum pump.
I ran a vacuum pump awhile back when I ran this cam in this engine before. Braking was great and I couldn't hear the pump with the engine running.
My car was originally 4 wheel drum so if I went with a legit B body power setup, I'd need everything....The firewall plate, the booster, the reduction linkage under the dash and yet another master cylinder unless I could get a booster with a 2 bolt master cylinder pattern.
The final option is to clean and reinstall the A-body booster and master cylinder that I have used since 2000.
Maybe with the bigger front brakes, the car will stop better than ever.
