oldsmobucket

hey guys been working on my 55 super 88 4 door and want to upgrade to power brakes. just wondering if you guysare buying kits from brake companies or putting together your own pieces if so what have you used? dont want to drop $1000 on the mc,booster, & pedal assembly. going to be mounted on the firewall. any help is appreciated.

Hal Robinson

I have only done one original conversion using all 55 parts. New pedal, tank, vacuum check valve,treadle master, hose and inside firewall plate. It wasn't that bad of a conversion. Cost me about $700. I don't know of any after market kits for the 55. they make some brake conversions for disc for the 57. I have an extra 55 pedal assembly and vacuum tube if you need them. Hal

Tedd Thompson

Oldsmobucket,
You might check on the vintage forum or do a search, one of the guys did this conversion on a 56, this should be very close to what you need. But if you want to stay stock there are rebuilt ones available from USA Parts Supply for under $ 300.00 plus core deposit , This would be the easiest way to go, plus your car would remain stockif that matters to you...Tedd

Tedd Thompson

I just checked and Fusick also has rebuilds available, price is a little higher but their catalog is newer....Tedd

Cratethis

If you are looking at doing a firewall mounted setup, I did one on mine.

I just went to the junk yard and pulled the brake pedal/MC booster assembly from a 1990 S-10(can be any from that generation). The brake pedal bracket and pedal bolts to the firewall using the bolts from the Booster bolts that go through the firewall. I got the brake pedal assembly, MC, Booster, lines to the proportioning valve and the p-valve for $60. Now that cost will all depend upon what your yard charges.

I still have all drum brakes so I didn't use the line and p-valve, but went ahead and got them incase/when I upgrade the front to disk brakes. To be honest, with how it stops now, I'm not worried about front disks. With the brakes adjusted correctly, it stops great!

Go part way down on my thread, first page, and you can see how my swap turned out.

https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...olds-88-a.html

oldsmobucket

thanks for all the info guys. Cratethis that looks like exactly what i need to do. i have a corvette style power mc do u think that it would work with the s10 booster as long as the mc bore was the same?

Cratethis

Don't know. I'd have to see the Corvette MC but my guess is that it won't.

I looked for an S-10 that still had the brake system intact. The one I found was broad sided. The MC had a good cap, full of brake fluid and the lines coming from the MC were still in tack. I felt pretty good about the system being in good condition and not contaminated from water/moisture. If I had found that the MC was bad, at least I had it for the core return at the parts store.

The brake pedal assembly also had the brake switch for the tail lights. This make it a pretty easy to hookup the relay for that too.