PACKED WITH POTENTIAL
July 16, 2023
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THE AUTO BUILDER
Featured
Hollywood, Bikes and Boats
Ever see those boats on the TV show Fear Factor? Those are Ultra Custom Boats built by John West and his team in El Cajon, California. Ever watch Monster Garage? That is Jesse James from West Coast Choppers, which is based in Long Beach, California. What happens when these two guys get together to build a boat and a bike is what we have here.
A RADICAL DRIVER
Some of the most interesting conversations around the office usually center on whether a rod built without shiny paint can be considered a finished rod or something else. There are some trendy names floating around that are often associated with these cars, but we don’t particularly think these names are appropriate or accurate for a proper description. Just because a rod has a satin finish doesn’t mean it is lacking any aspect of a finished rod. Rick Nowak’s ’48 Chevy pickup definitely falls into the latter category. As its owner and builder say, “It’s not a ratty rod; not perfect, just a radical-looking driver.”
CLARITY OF THOUGHT
You can’t blame Dean Sears for feeling a little confused about his love for cars. You see, he’s spent the past nine years as the head of Sport Trucks by Dean in Moorpark, California. His first car, in fact, was a truck. Well, sort of a truck. It was a ’68 El Camino. Pundits have described this vehicle as neither car nor truck, and often the word “confused” is used. Yes, even in 1978 Sears couldn’t decide between cars and trucks.
Spotlighter
Hydro-Boost Brakes
These Units Will Ensure Adequate Stopping Power for Your Street Rod
Nothing is more terrifying than cruising down the street to the fairgrounds when some idiot pulls out in front of you and you have to jump on the binders. Making a panic stop can be difficult when you are trying to stop 800 throbbing horsepower with a set of 9-inch rotors and single-piston calipers. You might even wonder if it will stop as you mash the brake pedal. When it comes to street rods with big motors, one braking concern is vacuum pressure. Is there enough? Many high-performance camshafts add power to the motor but produce low vacuum levels. This is something to consider when selecting your engine components. Of course, if the motor fails, you will have no vacuum, so stopping will be a real problem.
Author
Josh Mishler
Words & Photography
Why Brakes Often Get Overlooked
When building a street rod, we deem many areas of the car important. For example, the majority of street rodders like to have the best paint job around, so that becomes an area of concentrated focus. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in particular aspects of our cars that we forget about other areas that are equally important. Typically, when we spend our cubic dollars, we will spend the majority of our funds on the motor, paint and interior. However, we sometimes neglect to spend it on areas that really count, such as the brakes.
The Problem With Vacuum-Assisted Braking
Nothing is more terrifying than cruising down the street to the fairgrounds when some idiot pulls out in front of you and you have to jump on the binders. Making a panic stop can be difficult when you are trying to stop 800 throbbing horsepower with a set of 9-inch rotors and single-piston calipers. You might even wonder if it will stop as you mash the brake pedal. When it comes to street rods with big motors, one braking concern is vacuum pressure. Is there enough? This is something to consider when selecting your engine components. If the motor fails, can you stop your street rod?
The Birth of the Hydro-Boost Solution
Thankfully, that problem was on the mind of mechanic Roger Jackson some 20 years ago. Since he works on cars and trucks all the time, he noticed the hydraulic brake boosters that were used on diesel trucks, motor homes and semis to cure vacuum problems associated with braking. He soon started trying to figure out how he could make one work on a street rod. Before he knew it, he had one on his own street rod, and it was stopping on a dime.
Recognizing what his father had discovered, Rusty Jackson, owner and operator of Odd Rod Creations, started thinking about a way to engineer them to fit industry standards. Once Rusty had figured it out, he had a product that would be easy to install and marketable to anyone building a street rod.
How Hydro-Boost Brakes Work
These newly developed Hydro-Boost brake units for street rod applications work off of hydraulic pressure from your power steering pump and bolt directly to power brake assemblies from manufacturers using the common 7- or 8-inch booster. If you don’t have power steering, that’s not a problem because it is not required; the pump on the engine is all that you’ll need.
There will be no more worries about low vacuum as these units come pre-assembled with a pushrod, rod end, adapter plate, number 6 AN fitting adapters and all other necessary mounting hardware. Each booster has a built-in accumulator to provide one-time power brakes upon engine failure. These boosters are new, not rebuilt, and are for use with GM master cylinders and any type of power steering pump.
So if you’re looking for a way to make your street rod stop better than it has before, then check out these units and just how easy they are to install.
Here is the new unit for street rod applications that are designed to work off of hydraulic pressure from the power steering pump. It bolts directly to the power brake assembly using the common 7- or 8-inch booster.
First, you must mount a bracket to your frame in the desired location. We’ve located the bracket on the frame under the driver’s-side floor.
The hydro-booster unit is bolted to the bracket mounted on the frame using four 9/16 nuts.
Next, we are going to use a preset four-wheel proportioning valve from Master Power Brakes on our master cylinder.
With the proportioning valve properly installed on our master cylinder, it is now ready to be hooked up to our hydro-booster.
We have taken the master cylinder with the proportioning valve and attached it to the hydro-booster. We also connected our brake lines at the same time.
The unit gets pressure from the hydraulic pump on the engine, so power steering is not required; however, the pump on the engine is. We must determine which fittings are required for the power steering rack gearbox to convert to a 6 AN fitting.
For our application, we have found that Pure Choice banjo fittings work the best. Since the booster is equipped with Pure Choice AN fittings, everything works well together.
If you have power steering, install the banjo fittings on the power steering gearbox and direct the connection points in the desired direction.
We will now start plumbing our lines by installing the pressure side first. We ran the pressure supply line from the pump back to the booster, through the booster and back to the rack.
On the pressure side, we will use hydraulic hose from our local parts store. To make sure that everything fits properly, gauge the depth that the hose should go into the fitting and mark the hose. This way we can make sure that the hose is the right length.
Now that we have hooked up and cut our hose to run from the pump to the booster, we will plumb the hose from the booster to the steering gearbox.
The hose running to the steering gearbox is too long and must be cut. To make sure that it’s the length we need, we will gauge the depth by sight and then mark it for cutting.
Typically, hydraulic hose consists of three layers: an inner tube that carries the fluid, a reinforcement layer and an outer protective layer. Since the reinforcement layer is usually constructed of steel, you will need a die-grinder to cut the hose.
We will test-fit our hose and make sure that we cut the hydraulic hose to the proper length.
Using an oil-resistant 3/8-inch power steering hose, we will run a return line from pump the to the power steering gearbox to just below the pump, where we will use a T-fitting to connect it with a return line from the booster.
Just as we did from the gearbox, we will use an oil-resistant 3/8-inch power steering hose to run a return line from the booster to just below the pump, where it will be T’d with the return line from the gearbox.
Now that our return lines have been run to a good location near the frame that is right below the pump, we have T’d them together so that we can run a single return hose to the pump.
Once again using the power steering hose, we will run a single return line from the T-fitting to the pump. Using your eyesight and a little guess-ta-mation, mark a spot that would be a good length to cut your return hose and cut it.
Once again using the power steering hose, we will run a single return line from the T-fitting to the pump. Using your eyesight and a little guess-ta-mation, mark a spot that would be a good length to cut your return hose and cut it.
Now that the return has been cut, we test-fit it to make sure that we made it the proper length.
The last item we will connect and check for fitment is the rod that’s provided to connect the booster to the brake pedal.
Since everything is test-fit and checks out, we’ll use a marker to mark lines on the fittings and hydraulic hose for alignment when crimping. We do this because we have the hydraulic hose running like we want, and if it is crimped with the fitting turned a different way, your hoses could become twisted and create a real headache.
With the hose lined up properly with the marks on the fittings, we placed the hoses in a crimping machine and crimped the fitting onto the hoses. If you don’t own a crimping machine, most local parts stores have them and should be able to do the crimping for you.
Here is a view of the hose with the fitting crimped on. It looks nice and clean, which is just perfect for a street rod.
Now that the hoses have been crimped, we will reconnect them the way we ran them. Using a worm-drive hose clamp, we will connect the return line to the pump.
There you have it. The booster is in place, connected and ready to go. All you need to do now is bleed the system and it’s ready for use. You should have no more problems with loss of vacuum pressure.
ARTICLE SOURCES
Pure Choice Motorsports
2155 W. Acoma Blvd.
Lake Havasu City, AZ 86403
(928) 505-8355 tech line
(888) 505-8355 order line
Odd Rod Creations Inc.
8743 County Road 290
Carl Junction, MO 64834
(417) 825-2632
