Improving performance of Hunter brakes?

[greyV8pete]

Re: Improving performance of Hunter brakes?

Chris do Screwfix also supply 4 sets of bricks to leave the car on :-D Peter.

[CosworthCabrioLee]

Re: Improving performance of Hunter brakes?

Hi Mike,
I love reading all the threads think you may get a prize off me at Stonleigh for the most threads. I am in the process of fitting disc brakes to my V8 at the rear and 260mm discs at the front should be finished soon so will let you know the results.
When I got my car it had ford wheel locking nuts on it and I had no key. best way of removel is to get a socket that is slightly to small and tap it on the nut then screw it off. it only took five minutes to do all 4 wheels.

[gouldsborough7]

Re: Improving performance of Hunter brakes?

Lee, Not sure if any bodge-job socket would have worked on my wheels, as the security wheel-nut is a very smooth round job with a wiggly female pattern that has to match up the male version in the key.

Anyway, I ordered a replacement security key from Ford, and will be collecting it tomorrow at a local agent.
Fingers & toes crossed that the security number I had produces the correct pattern on the key. When I get it, I will attach it a a jumbo socket, that will make losing it virtually impossible!

The very first job I want to do asap is a tiny tiny leak between the new rear slave cylinder and the copper pipe. Ironically, when sorting out the front brakes and new fluid, I renewed the old rear slaves so that I wouldn't get a future problem with leakages!

Has anyone got any good fixes to cure this leak? I don't really want to wrench the union nut any tighter.

Cheers
Mike

[CABRIOBOB]

Re: Improving performance of Hunter brakes?

I would slacken the union nut off slightly and give the pipe a small wiggle then re tighten, If this fails you must have a small crack on the pipe, behind the pipe flange and the union face.

[gouldsborough7]

Re: Improving performance of Hunter brakes?

Took delivery of the wheel security key (£8 cheaper than garage quote, now £27), and hurrah it fitted with no problem. It is now gaffer-taped to a long 19mm socket, to make it more obvious and easier to use than the old one that disappeared without trace - probably in a neighbour's front garden! They might find it when their lawn-mower grinds to a halt next Spring!

Bob, before trying your method, I wiped the area with tissue, then with a small spanner I managed to carefully tighten the nut a smidgen more. Applying the brakes quite hard a number of times produced no fluid - yippee!

Left the car on jacks with wheel off for 24hr, and still no leak. Will obviously keep a careful eye on the master cylinder level as well as the slave cylinder area.

Next job is to replace the front bushes with the Supaflex ones. Will provide feedback when job is done.

Cheers
Mike

[greyV8pete]

Re: Improving performance of Hunter brakes?

Mike. When fitting the Supaflex bushes don't forget to replace the big washers at the front ends of the Anti Roll Bar with the larger diameter O/E Ford ones. Part Nos are F6172539 (two required) and F6172540(two required). The flatter (Green) one goes to the rear and the dished one (Black) goes to the front. Green and black painted surfaces fit against the bushes. Check that you fit the halves of the bushes the right way around. They are marked Front and Rear on the outermost diameter. Also fit them with the stainless spacers using only the silicone grease supplied with the kit, NOT ordinary grease as that will soften the bush material. Finally always replace the Nyloc nuts with new ones P/No F6523434 (two required) and torque to 52/81 lb.ft. You should be able to pick up all these Ford parts for around a tenner inc VAT. Finally get the steering toe-in checked and set. Sierra spec is 2.0mm +/- 1.0mm TOTAL toe in (i.e. 1.0mm +/- 0.5mm toe in per wheel). Then enjoy a completely different driving experience! :-) Peter.

[gouldsborough7]

Re: Improving performance of Hunter brakes?

Thanks Peter
Good of you to go to the trouble of providing the details. Will make contact with my Ford agent asap. Would be a shame to spoil the ship for a few quid's worth of washers & nuts!

Just a couple of quick questions: I assume that it would be best to get the car up on axle stands, with wheels off, and remove anti-roll bar entirely before doing anything else? Then unbolt lower suspension arm at the inner end, but assume there is no need to disconnect steering ball-joint?


Cheers
Mike

[greyV8pete]

Re: Improving performance of Hunter brakes?

No problem Mike :-) I started down this Supaflex route many years ago with my old Sierra and those bushes were just like new 8 years later! Always use heavy duty axle stands for a job like this. They have wide jaws that fit under the chassis rails. I also put the removed wheels under the car as further insurance! As my ARB is the really beefy one from the Granada/ Sierra 4x4 it does have a mind of its own when unbolted so here's the best procedure that I found. (Warning! It is one of those half a day becoming all weekend jobs)!

Jack the car onto axle stands. Remove the wheels. Undo the rear D-rubber to chassis clamps and support loosely horizontal on axle stands or a box so the ARB bushes are not tensioned. Undo the big ARB nuts and slide the ARB back out of the way. Split the lower ball joint, then undo the inner (lower) track control arm-to-chassis bolt and remove the track control arm. With these off the car you can clean off all the rust, rubber etc from the big ARB bush hole. You can then remove the old rubber type inner bush. Best way I find is to drill out the rubber with a ring of 5mm holes, then press the centre out, then carefuly hacksaw throught the outer sleeve, from the inside outwards, taking care not to cut into the arm itself! Now fit the track control arms to the ARB using the silicone lube, but don't fully tighten the nuts, just do them up enough to get the two halves of the Supaflex to mate snugly together. Then refit the lower ball joint and nut. Then fit the two halves of the inner bushes and spacer (use the silicone lube). Then use a stout X head screwdriver to lever the arms so the bolt holes line up with the chassis mountings and fit the bolts (loose). I found ratchet clamps were needed across the ARB to squeeze it together to facilitate this. Finally refit the rear D-bush clamps. Then refit the wheels and only tighten all the bush bolts when the car is resting on the wheels. Peter.

[greyV8pete]

Re: Improving performance of Hunter brakes?

Oooops! Senior moment here Mike. Re the removal of the inner bushes above, I was thinking of an earlier car. The Sierra bushes don't have an outer metal sleeve. However they are still a bit of a pain to remove as the rubber tends to bond on to the metal of the radius arm. What I use for mine is a puller made from a piece of 10mm threaded rod, two washers and a couple of suitably sized sockets to pull the bush out. However I usually find that I also have to drill through the rubber a few times to weaken it enough to pull the bush out. Also putting the whole contraption across the jaws of a vice and giving the top nut a good whack with a hammer every few turns can help! While everything is stripped off give the radius arm a good wire brushing and a couple of coats of Finnegans Smoothrite to improve the final appearance, as these components are very visible on our cars. Peter.

[gouldsborough7]

Re: Improving performance of Hunter brakes?

Hi Peter
Many thanks. You've really pulled out all the stops on your replies. Some really useful pointers there. I got half-way through the job, and realised that my ball-joint puller was knackered. So am just awaiting a delivery of a new one from an e-bay supplier, and hope to complete at the weekend - keeping fingers & toes crossed!

Will let you know how things pan out.
Cheers
Mike

[greyV8pete]

Re: Improving performance of Hunter brakes?

No probs Mike. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt a it were. When you use the ball joint splitter don't just keep tightening the screw and wait for it to split the joint. Best way is to tighten the screw quite tight and then give the part that is resting over the head of the ball joint screw a sharp blow with a hammer. Also to avoid damage to the threads or to the original nyloc nut (or castellated nut if fitted) you should replace this with a spare plain nut instead and screw it down until it is just flush with the top of the thread on the ball joint. Check there is still a small clearance gap underneath! This will also support the suspension arm when the joint "splits" and save it falling on the floor, or your fingers :-O
Remember these jobs are FUN! Peter.

[gouldsborough7]

Re: Improving performance of Hunter brakes?

Peter
Been having heaps of fun with this job! With new splitter, I got the 2 radius arms off the car without any drama, following the same route as you have just described. The first arm was no real problem in removing the old bushes and fitting Superflex ones. I was halfway through doing the second arm, when I realised that the new bushes would not fit, i.e. they were not big enough for the holes, or in reality the holes were too big.

Cutting a long story short, I discovered that the 2nd arm is a pattern or ‘after market’ version, being fitted a few months ago by my village garage when they found the ball joint was totally *&$^£&ed!! At the time, I wanted the car quickly back on the road, and as their quote was reasonable I let them do the job. No problem at that time, with Superflex not being remotely in my mind.

Now I am left with a car up on axle-stands and reluctantly a new radius arm on order from a Ford agent, expected in a few days. The man at Superflex had not experienced this problem before, and could offer no solution or alternative bush-sizes. He did suggest that I tour local scrappies for a secondhand radius arm, but as I pointed out this could leave me with a *&$^£&ed ball-joint, which is where I was at the beginning of this story. It’s a bit like the old “there’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza” song! It did cross my mind to get the holes sleeved out with some metal tubing. However, I would be embarking on another potentially dodgy route, with maybe a small saving in overall cost, but a serious danger if it went wrong.

Hopefully by the weekend I will have everything fitted back together, without experiencing further snags. Will let you know the outcome.

(So what do I do with the 'after market' radius arm? Think this is destined for the bin or local scrappy.)

Cheers
Mike

[greyV8pete]

Re: Improving performance of Hunter brakes?

Hi Mike. Glad to know things are moving forward, even if with the inevitable hiccups! You are right to stick to a replacement from Mr Ford. Sounds like the odd arm is a "pattern" part with all the inherent errors and risks that they cause. Best send it for recycling into paper clips or something else more useful. Remember back along this saga, during your original uneven braking investigations, the guy at the Baldock K/K meeting did say it looked different to the other one ;-)Happily Go-Kart steering is imminent! Peter.

[gouldsborough7]

Re: Improving performance of Hunter brakes?

Hi Peter
Got the new radius arm from Ford, and you can imagine my initial reluctance to start cannabilising the 2 rubber bushes! Ironically, the ARB bush looked exactly the same as the "pattern" one. However, I knew from my experience with the duff one that this bush is relatively easy to prise out. So I took the plunge and of course when the large hole was revealed it fitted the Superflex bush with no problems. Drilling the 5mm holes and extracting the small bush was not so worrying after that.

Got everything back together again without any major difficulties. My biggest problem is always working in an 16ft long x 8ft wide garage on the floor. I get the car as high as I can on (2 of each) trolley jacks, axles stands and large wooden blocks, and roll around on a trolley. How I envy professional garages with hydraulic hoists to get the car 6ft in the air!

Anyway, I digress. I re-adjusted the tracking to your figures (I've got a telescopic gizmo that measures the inside gap at the wheel rims, at both rear and front of the 2 wheels). First impressions on a test-run were good. The brakes definitely stop the car in a straight line - no pulling to the left! I haven't been able to fully check the steering around bends as yet. Not sure if I have 'go-kart' steering, but it was lighter, and goes where I point it.

One characteristic I noticed was a feeling of the rear wheels being a bit 'tail-happy' on some bends, without being heavy on the accelerator either. I was running the tyres on 22psi all around, so I am experimenting with a reduction to 18psi to see if this improves the grip. The crap wet weather during the couple of test-runs probably didn't help any.

So thanks a heap, Peter. Your tips were extremely helpful. After lots of trial and error tweaks, renewing the brakes, and finally the Superflex bushes, it was really satisfying to complete the job with improvements all around.

(This topic has nearly reached 60 hits. Is this a record?)

Cheers
Mike

[greyV8pete]

Re: Improving performance of Hunter brakes?

Hi Mike. Glad to hear that things are progressing well. I have just looked in the service info that was supplied to the original owner of my Hunter and the front toe in is shown as zero degrees, i.e. parallel. I have always set mine as per Sierra which is 0 to 2deg max toe in (i.e. 0 to 1 deg max per side). I run on low profile tyres at 18psi pressure all round.

If you have problems at the rear end check also that the shox are set right. Too hard and it will jump about all over the place. Try backing the shox off completely all round. Then gradually harden them up one click at a time until you just eliminate the "bounce" when going over yumps. I've found that with GAZ all round about 4 clicks is all you need for a comfortable but controlled ride. For track use you may want to go harder? Remember the clicks are for adjustment, not calibration so you may need say 4 on one side and 3 or 5 on the other to get equal feel both sides.

Finally do a search for 'Rear Wheel Tracking' in this Cabrio category of the forum. There is a lot of info from Derek Jones about reducing the excessive rear wheel toe in that seems to be inherent in the original Sierra design.

Also look in Dec/Jan pitstop (page 9)for Derek's table of shim thicknesses to correct this.

Oops! So now you have gained another job! :-)Peter.