This sudden increase of braking force toward the bottom of pedal travel is a
characteristic of some power boosters - the ones used by Packard and many
other cars in the 50's which were made by Bendix have this characteristic
also. The way to moderate the effect is to adjust the brakes back to where
less pedal travel is required, in other words, perform the normal periodic
brake adjustment which all car built without automatic adjusters require.
This procedure should be described in your factory service manual, and is
recommended every 1000 miles on most cars, I believe.
I don't know for sure that this is your cause, but if you have not adjusted
the brakes recently, I'd recommend that as a first step - it may cure the
problem.
The earliest self adjusters were on Studebakers starting in the 40s, but I
don't believe they became common on other American brands until sometime in
the early 60's.
Dick Benjamin
----- Original Message -----
From: "Philippe Courant" <>
To: <mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Fwdlk" <L-FORWARDLOOK@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2003 1:24 AM
Subject: IML: rough brakes on '57
> Hi,
> Yesterday the weather was fine so i drove my '57 as usual.
> And as usual i noted a very rough braking especially at low speed when i
> must stop at crossroads, red lights etc..
> I must depress very carefully the pedal to stop the car ! If not i throw
> the front passengers in the windshield !! Sure that Imperial brakes well
> (far superior to my '58 Buick..) but rather too hard. Seems that ther's
> no progressivity. The braking is on a fraction of the pedal travel.
>
> At normal speed the braking is less rough but i 've always in mind this
> problem in case of emergency braking.
>
> --
>
> Philippe COURANT (Pau, France)- Webmaster des sites ACCF et C-I-F
> Imperial 1957 Crown convertible
> Buick 1996 Roadmaster wagon
>
> - American Car Club de France (ACCF) : http://www.accf.com
>
> - Chrysler Imperial France (C-I-F) : http://www.ifrance.com/c-i-f
>
> - Cadillac " Standard of Excellence " : http://www.ifrance.com/accf-cad
>
> - SportsCars : http://www.ifrance.com/accf-sprtcar
>
>
>
>
>
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