I'm rebuilding the power brake booster for my 1956 T-bird. I have been driving the car for 18 years, but the booster has been out since at least before then.
As you can see, it's in pretty rough shape. Also, if you've seen the 1956 Ford Shop Manual, you'll notice that it really doesn't bear a lot of resemblance to the one in the diagram (page 215, Fig 15). I'm not sure if this discrepancy is because this part doesn't really belong in this car (not likely, my Dad is usually pretty reliable about this stuff), or, the design changed during the design year or the Thunderbird was different from the standard 1956 Ford.
Anyway, here are the steps I've completed so far:
1) Removal (this probably happened over 20 years ago, so I don't know how this was done)
2) Disassembly
a) "Remove the control value bypass tube from the booster assembly".
This instruction is typical of the Ford Shop Manual, in that it's not as helpful as it could be. Anyway, you do this by loosening the nut that's holding the bypass tube from the con
trol valve body. Once the nut is loosened, the bypass tube can be worked off. Be careful because brake fluid WILL leak out when you do this.b) "Remove the control valve body, diaphragm spring, and the control valve piston and diaphragm assembly from the slave cylinder body".
This is pretty simple. Remove the bolts, and it just comes right off.
After the housing is off, the housing a
nd spring looks like this:And the control valve piston and diaphragm assembly looks like this:
Getting the diaphragm assembly was a bit troublesome. There's a lock bushing of some kind, and I broke the bushing while taking it off. It appears to be part of the Rebuild kit in the Casco catalog, but not sold separately. I'll see
how many of the parts in this kit need to be replaced, and see if I can get it separately if I need to.Once I got the diaphragm off, it looked like this:
"Mark both bodies of the booster chamber and the flanges of the control valve and the slave cylinder so they can be assembled in their original positions. Remove the clamp ring, the outer section of the booster chamber, and the diaphragm and the pressure plate
assembly with the return spring".I didn't mark the bodies of the booster chamber, because there are plenty of ways to identify the correct orientation, and I took a picture.
You don't need to completely remove the clamp ring, just push it down over the inner section of the power chamber, so the outer section can be taken off. Again, be aware that fluid is likely to leak out.
Removing the diaphragm and pressure plate with the return spring was easy. Just rotate it counter clockwise, and it comes off easily.
Here's what it looked like as it was being removed:
Next instruction:
"Remove the push rod bushing and the inner section of the power chamber from the slave cylinder"
This part caused me a problem.
The bolt-head of the bushing is at least 1 1/2 inches. My largest wrench is 1 1/4 inches. I have some channel locks that can get that big, but channel locks are sub-optimal when removing a bolt.Also, in the middle of the bolt, you'll notice a snap ring. Don't try to remove the snap ring without snap ring pliers. It's trivial with the pliers, and likely to break the ring if you don't use them. Once the snap ring was removed, there was a washer and a seal that came out easily.
Since I could not get the bushing out of the booster body and the slave cylinder body, and it was getting late, I stopped here for the night. I placed all of the parts in tupperware containers so they don't get lost or confused. I've applied some bolt loosener to the bushing, and hopefully it will be loose enough to get off with a 1 1/2 inch wrench later.
