As mentioned previously, I once owned a 1947 Crosley. Crosleys were
probably the ultimate in the cheap car category of the period. I'm told
that one of the more serious short comings these cars had originally was
mechanical brakes. Apparently this was too much for some previous owner
because my Crosley had hydraulic brakes when I bought it. I'm not sure
whether this was some sort of dealer mod or a conversion kit added by
the owner. Quite sometime after I acquired the car I got to wondering
just how good the brakes really were so I decided to conduct a little
experiment. I got the car going about 40 MPH on the street in front of
my house and slammed on the brakes as hard as I could. I immediately
got this panic/sinking feeling as the brake pedal squished all the way
to the floor and the car seemed to pick up another 15 MPH or so.
Fortunately it was a long street and there was no traffic to contend
with so I was able to get the car stopped with out incident and even
managed to drive it back to the house without brakes.
Since there was copious amounts of brake fluid oozing from the front
drums, I pulled the the wheels for a look see. What had happen was that
the "extra" pressure had popped the pistons and seals out of the front
slave cylinders. I cleaned off everything as best I could, put the
pistons and seals back in the cylinders, remounted the wheels then
adjusted and bled the brakes. That was the only brake work I ever did
on the car the entire time I owned it.
Roland
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