Upgrading to power brakes

[JohnandColeen]

Sent: 9/15/2003

Our 1969 Winnebago F-17 (Ford) has NO power brakes. As you can imagine, John's braking leg is getting a real work out. We want to install power brakes.  Anyone have a good source for
parts?  Any advice?
John and Coleen in Alaska

[denisondc]

Sent: 9/15/2003

John and Colleen: This is just an opinion, I'm no Ford expert, and you may know all this already. I assume the chassis under your winny was similar to the trucks or school bus chassis of the same year and gross weight, and some of those may have come with power brakes, or had that option. I would look around for the information on your same chassis size, or near it. I don’t have any manuals for Fords, but would look in manuals for F3s, F4s, F5s, or F300, F400, etc. You would need to know what your winny chassis is. If you or someone near you had those manuals you could see if the there was a power brake setup for it and you could start looking into that system . You need to get close to the correct cylinder bore sizes - so the piston bore and stroke in your backfit master cylinder would give you the proper braking effect and pedal movement for the wheel cylinders on your rig. This doesn’t mean the same bore size for wheel cylinders and master cylinder usually. I assume you have drum brakes on the front axle: Most all modern vehicles use disc brakes at least up front - a master cylinder for such a vehicle would be unsuitable. The master cylinder you will be looking for will be pretty much an old truck part, period. If your brake system is dual, having a dual master cylinder, you would want to maintain that with a dual master cylinder backfit. If it is a single system, you would probably want to have a single chamber master cylinder. With incredible luck you would only need to install a booster and a different mounting bracket, maybe adapters for different length brake lines to a repositioned M.Cyl. But sometimes the optional power brake systems had a slightly larger bore in the master cylinder. There used to be an old Ford collectors web-site, but it seems to be moribund. www.stovebolt.com is the old GM truck collectors web site - they may have sources for old master cylinders.
denison

[Dave1210]

Sent: 9/16/2003

I have a 70 F250 Camper Special that has power brakes, it has a booster mounted on the firewall and a dual reservoir master-cylinder mounts to the booster.  If you have about 18 inches or so of space possibly you could mount a similar system that these trucks have. Plus there are lots of parts still around for these trucks. I replaced the master cylinder and booster a little over a year ago and the new or rebuilt parts were not too much $. There is a site for ford trucks called fordtrucks.com, if you can figure what chassis you have then you can pick the appropriate year and truck to ask questions about the types of power brake systems available for ford chassis

[DanielTBolger]

Fo to the custom car  part  they make power brake unit that mount on the frame with the pedal  together

[RV Mech Tech]

(late posting to this topic)  John & Colleen - if you are still looking for a source for parts check out   www.mpbrakes.com   - this is Master Power Brakes Inc.  - they manufacture brake conversion kits for the special interest vehicle hobby and high-performance and race car  brake systems and conversions- they also have some universal brake system parts for conversions on earlier cars and trucks- you can also get in touch with them and they may have what you are looking for or suggest what you can use - another company is www.ssbrakes.com  - Stanless Steel Brakes - they may have something you can use as well.