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Jared's '79 5.3 244 Project: The Qwikbrik

Long time no update, but not much has changed. On Friday, I took the car out to a deserted backroad near me and got some beautiful shots while enjoying the peak of fall color. Rabble all you want about portrait video boomer.


Then Sunday, I figured I'd take it over to Knoxville to meet a friend of mine. About 3/4 of the way there I hit the brakes on the highway and it was suuuuper spongy. Pulled off at the next exit to see that brake fluid was streaming down over the rear axle. Turns out where that flex line goes from the chassis to the axle, I apparently forgot/ignored the fact that it's supposed to be held to the bracket with a jam nut, and it's been long enough that just rattling in the bracket rubbed a hole in the fitting. Whoops. I wound up blocking off the rear circuit at the master and refilling the master, which got me decent brakes and pedal feel again and getting home, but not before I tried to crimp the hard line under the car (why dude, why?) and punched a hole in it, so now I have to remake the line from the proportioning valve all the way to the axle. Something about when your only tool is a hammer all your problems look like nails.

Anyway, I also need to dig into why no matter how I set the proportioning valve, the brakes are incredibly rear biased. It's frustrating.
 
propav8r said:
No. Those were removed and replaced with a single Wilwood proportioning valve close to the master.
Click to expand...
ahh gotcha. on my 244 with the 8.8 what i did was bypass the brake octopus and ran a single line to one of the stock proportioning valves in the rear and then from that went to the calipers. the brake bias felt near perfect on it
 
I just put a Wilwood proportioning valve on the PV, to help out the front discs which were OK with slightly less sticky tires, but with better tires on it I'm assuming there's more weight transfer forward and less weight on the rears. But there seemed to be less range than I would have expected from it. I have it cranked ALL the way down, taking as much pressure as it allows off the rears, and it's just 'close' between the fronts and rears on dry pavement. Which is fine, but I'd probably give it a touch more if I could.
 
cosbySweater said:
ahh gotcha. on my 244 with the 8.8 what i did was bypass the brake octopus and ran a single line to one of the stock proportioning valves in the rear and then from that went to the calipers. the brake bias felt near perfect on it
Click to expand...
That's how it was set up before and it was even worse.
 
Sounds awesome! looks like that was a fun vid to make also.

I will be watching what you come up with for the brakes, on my last R brake setup I didn't use any proportioning valves. I just put a set of braided stainless lines where the rear valves were. It didn't occur to me to try something different on my 78 but maybe that's a mistake.
 
Harlard said:
what's up with the rear brakes? Are the pistons of a tiny diameter?
Click to expand...
I don't think so. Cursory searching says the rear caliper has a piston diameter of 1.875"/48mm, which is significantly larger than the 1" piston on the rear calipers from an SN95 Mustang, which is what the master cylinder is from.
 
Finally got the brakes fixed up last night, back in business. I added a jam nut and a bracket for my brake tee so hopefully everything's more solid and we don't have that exact issue again.
 
propav8r said:
Finally got the brakes fixed up last night, back in business. I added a jam nut and a bracket for my brake tee so hopefully everything's more solid and we don't have that exact issue again.
Click to expand...
cant wait to hear the results, ive been messing with my brakes like crazy and i feel your pain
 
8.8 rear brakes have much larger pistons and a larger rotor diameter when compared to a stock 240 setup, this results in ~60% more rear braking force over a stock 240 setup. So yeah, if you want balanced brakes you'll have to change out front calipers and rotors to get back into a reasonable range or do a rear caliper with a much smaller piston area.

For instance, the STS brake kit with 12.2" rotors and 1.75in bore Wilwoods results in a package that is closer to the original 240 balance.
If you have s60R brakes on the front the balance is now about 10% more rearward than a stock 240.
 
culberro said:
8.8 rear brakes have much larger pistons and a larger rotor diameter when compared to a stock 240 setup, this results in ~60% more rear braking force over a stock 240 setup. So yeah, if you want balanced brakes you'll have to change out front calipers and rotors to get back into a reasonable range or do a rear caliper with a much smaller piston area.

For instance, the STS brake kit with 12.2" rotors and 1.75in bore Wilwoods results in a package that is closer to the original 240 balance.
If you have s60R brakes on the front the balance is now about 10% more rearward than a stock 240.
Click to expand...
I've felt this under hard braking. That was new feeling 😬 lol
 
I guess there was a little resistance in the bias adjuster that I misinterpreted as the end of travel, but it had a few more turns to go. With the adjuster cranked all the way out for sure, I can now lock up the front wheels on gravel before locking the rears, so that's something. I'll scooch that knob in by half a turn or so until I get to a balance point that I like.

It's getting towards the end of the nice driving season, we'll start seeing salt on the roads and cold temps soon.
 
A bit more maintenance...I've had a turbine sound coming from the FR wheel for oh...6 months now? Just been ignoring it and turning up the radio but it's been getting worse, so I finally investigated.

Turns out the inner bearing on the front right wheel was toast. I also didn't have grease caps on the hubs (who knows why) so that probably didn't help things.

Easy fix though. Funny enough, these struts came off of Hockey930's old 760 and I guess when he built the coilovers, he just used what he could find, which in this case are early 240 spindles with the smaller bearings. I'm glad I caught that before I ordered the wrong parts.

For posterity, on the early 16mm thread spindles, you need a Timken SET2 and SET6 for each wheel, and my local Autozone actually had Duralast-branded Timken bearings in stock for cheaper than RockAuto. Got one side done last night before getting sidetracked, I'll tackle the other side this evening.
 
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