LEAKOIL Forum

Made it out to Bill's today just before he was closing up. Nick (from Wakeman) was there. (He's the young guy at Eastern Michigan with the green and white early bay bus.) We got to talk about everything from windmills to various brake parts. Bill hooked me up with the rear brake shoes and the rear wheel cylinders for my '59. Thanks Bill! I was going to rivet the replacement shoes I had onto the original hardware, but as Bill said earlier, that wouldn't have been a very good idea. The pop rivets will fail and that's never good. Here are the parts from Bill...

shoes that fit '55-'63...


one of the rear cylinders for a '55-'71...


When I got home I was happy to find my dual bay master cylinder and CSP adapter kit arrived. Here they are...


I'm going to be a 'crash test dummy' on the bay MC in a split bus. This is the first step in my eventual plan to go to disc brakes with stock wide five rims on an early split.

I was so elated I got everything ready that I got the other bullet turn signal housing painted and installed. Now i've got two ambers...

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WideFive wrote:I'm running a Bay M/C in the Single. Running Super Beetle front WC on the rear w/ early Type I brakes, though. I think I need to bleed mine more. Will be nice to compare with your pedal feel.

That makes your the original "crash test dummy"!

I've got many extra wheel cylinders and rebuild kits if you need to go that route. I had no idea you could "mix and match" beetle and bus wheel cylinders/parts. Learn something new everyday!

As for pedal, the one concern I have is no vacuum. Is the pedal too hard without vacuum on a bay master cylinder? (Don't go there Howie).

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WideFive wrote:You can't come with me though, cause I'll run the dog shit out of that 36hp

Bring it on brother!

I like everything you've done so far Sean! I'm NO stock Nazi, just want them out on the road to be enjoyed

WideFive wrote:I can definitely use the type I WC's you had in pic #2.

Yeah, I think my brakes suck, I have to pump them once, then they are... ok. They need bled some more. Pedal is a little stiff I guess? There are some differences between a Single and a full weight Bus... let a lone a Camper...

If I can run yours around the block, I'll be better able to compare. You can't come with me though, cause I'll run the dog shit out of that 36hp

The bay master has more fluid displacement than a split. a bay might also have a different pedal ratio than the split due to the booster, I have not looked into this yet. There will be a difference in pedal feel due to this.

You could voulmertricly figure the stock system and figure the differences between all the different parts iterations.

I'm just going to get this thing together and bring it someplace where Ted and Aaron can drive it and figure out all the 'voulmertricly' and 'iterations' issues.

I just want to be able to stop.

Ok, I probably needed to understand the 'brake reality'. I was torn between 'stock' and the 'upgrade', and for brakes, I chose 'upgrade'. Many thanks to Bill Webner for some rare brake parts and to Dale who provided, not only a lot of other rare parts and needed items, but the environment to make it all happen.

I replaced the single with the dual. I'm still thinking of going 'all out' with the disc set up, but I guesss that's down the road.

Here you go with some photos of the brake rehabilitation, as well as a few pics from Dale's VW on State Road.

The bus is finally at Dale's...

On the lift...

These 50 year old brakes needed everything...

I guess it's all about the shoes...

The big thing was going to a dual MC...

The original was a single...

The worst part about doing this was the gromets...

Bill Webner told me this was a 'tough job'. Dale agreed and gave me the task of "doing it", well at least some of it, because Dale did all the 'hard stuff'. Dale really did all of it. I was the willing gofer!

If you have not been to Dale's, It can be an adventure. You can say a lot about Dale's, but just like Bill's, it's totally 'old school'.
Here it is...

Sean,

You are doing the right thing with the dual master cylinder set-up and the disks would be the icing on the cake. Driving the bus is great, stopping it is even better.

What kind of master cylinder did you end up using?

I would like to visit Dale's place and meet him, what is the address?