The problems with this manual brake conversion seem like they will never stop! The El Camino continues to have less than stellar brakes and I went through everything in an attempt to make these brakes stop the car. Let’s talk about all the things that I went through trying to make these work.
So right in the beginning, I bled the brakes per the instructions in the Manual Brakes kit starting with the master cylinder. The instructions call out for using inverted flare plugs in the ports and cycling the piston. I have never bled a master like this, it seemed to work, especially as when I cracked the plugs to allow any trapped air to escape.
Next, mounting it to the firewall is a simple straightforward process. It bolted up and the fitting adapters went in like they are supposed to. Moving forward I bled the brakes as normal using a helper to pump the brakes. Then I bled the fitting at the rubber line for the rear differential. Then moving on to bleed the wheel cylinders. The front calipers were bled next. The brake pedal pushrod was also adjusted and improved things slightly.
The test drive was uninspiring, things just didn’t go as well as I had hoped. I made a few changes like lengthening the brake pedal push rod and making sure the rear drums are adjusted correctly. The next test drive was also a bit of a let down. After I stopped lying to myself, I reached out to a great friend Bruce Coggins ( https://www.youtube.com/@BruceCoggins) and we went through this brake system looking for anything that might even be a potential problem. After double checking everything, and verifying that the system was correctly bled, we came to the conclusion that this master cylinder is too small to generate both the pressure and volume this system needs. Stay tuned for more on that coming soon!
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