Hey I was checking out your ladder bar conversion pics and noticed your manual brake conversion.

I have a few questions concerning your conversion.

1.) Does it hurt your braking capabilities by converting to manual like that? removing the booster...

2.) What additional parts are you required to purchase to do the conversion?


I guess that is really it. I am interested in doing this swap myself but my main concern was compromising the braking capabilities of an already lacking braking system. It sure would free up some room on the drivers side which would be nice; and also a little bit of weight.

Thanks for any information you can give me.

 

It takes a bit more effort to push on the brakes but not that much.

The master cylinder is out of an S-10 that had manual brakes. I fabricated my own push rod. You'll notice that it's mounted 1" higher on the brake pedel arm to keep it inline with the master cylinder and to give more mechanical advantage. You have to remove the brake pedel and drill the hole. The rod is a factory rod that's been shortened to fit, threaded for the rod end and has a good rod end to attach to the pedel.

 

wow that's easy....hmmm

 

In the "old days" the installation was even easier. The factory brake pedal already had the higher hole since cars could still come with manual brakes. Now that everything is power brake, they don't make a provision for a simple swap.

The installation was easy on my car. If you have a full interior and dash, pulling the brake pedel out so that you can drill the new hole can get very frustrating. As you can see, there's nothing under my dash to give me any problems.

 

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