C5/6 Master cyl and Booster in C3

Time to replace the HEAVY cast Iron Master cylinder with something lighter. Direct replacement in Aluminum is close to $100 new, and I'm still left with a 40 Year old Booster.
Sourced a Master and Booster assembly out of an 2004 for $100 on e-bay . Same bolt patern as C3 to bolt it on. Had to enlarge the center hole to clear the boot and shorten the rod and install a Clevis. Sourced a Clevis from McMaster Carr for $13 in stainless steel (nothing too good for My Corvettte) The rod was the perfect size to cut 3/8 - 24 threads on it for the clevis and jam nut. Also cut the flair from both brake lines removed old tube nut installed new ones , and re-flaired with metric bubble flair. Bolt it all together , bleed and done. This was one of the easiest up grades yet !

Now the hard part cleaning, sanding, and painting this turd to make it look good.

OK , I finally got it painted and bolted on . Painted the Booster with Eastwoods Golden Cad , it looks exactly like a 78-up which was exactly what I wanted. Then clearcoated it with Glisten PC. The only hard part was gettin the new Clevis Pin in , it is a little longer than the stocker and there is no room. Had to grind a relief in the brake pedal support to get it in.

Last pic shows the Booster vacuum line I made from Stainless Steel complete with polished Stainless Swedgelock fitting.

I curious about the pedal feel on that install, wish I could drive it myself....I had major issues with my brakes , pedal feel was mushy as hell, and I could put the pedal past stopping the car down to the floor, which I have never liked that GM soft pedal, and the 4" of travel it had.....it wasn't that much worse than other GM cars, but it WAS worse.....I had tried every trick in the book and even went to larger diameter truck m/cyl. and that helped, but still soft pedal.....I put in a Hydroboost unit, and that shark stood on it's nose and tossed my nose into the wheel.....went back to a stock diameter m/cyl. and problem solved......I used one from Pirate Jack Racing, aluminum....car stops fine with about 2" of pedal travel, and it's HARD not some mushy feeling.....

:surrender::smash:

Any reason you say the plastic one is better technology than the alum wilwood cylinder?

For the same price I'd take the wilwood.

mrvette said:

I curious about the pedal feel on that install, wish I could drive it myself....I had major issues with my brakes , pedal feel was mushy as hell, and I could put the pedal past stopping the car down to the floor, which I have never liked that GM soft pedal, and the 4" of travel it had.....it wasn't that much worse than other GM cars, but it WAS worse.....I had tried every trick in the book and even went to larger diameter truck m/cyl. and that helped, but still soft pedal.....I put in a Hydroboost unit, and that shark stood on it's nose and tossed my nose into the wheel.....went back to a stock diameter m/cyl. and problem solved......I used one from Pirate Jack Racing, aluminum....car stops fine with about 2" of pedal travel, and it's HARD not some mushy feeling.....

:surrender::smash:

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Can't say how it feels , won't get to drive it for at least another Month. Drove plenty of C5 and C6 and the brakes were great. Been driving GM cars for the last 41 years and never experienced 4 inches of travel unless something was wrong.

I have a Silverado HD with the hydroboost and the brakes are steller except when You really stand on them in a panic situation. The Truck stops hard but the pedal rod must be spring loaded , Your foot goes to the floor and it feels like ya stepped in a big pile of Cowshit. It stops hard and fast except it feels like You just popped a brake line.

Also no power steering so hydroboost is out. Eventually gonna replace all of the heavy out dated junk with newer lighter parts from late models.

rtj said:

Any reason you say the plastic one is better technology than the alum wilwood cylinder?

For the same price I'd take the wilwood.

Click to expand...

I never said anything about the wilwood , I'm sure it's a fine quality part like everything else they make. I'm just after the lightest and cheapest part available . GM has built a shitload of C5/6 cars and parts are available anywhere . I don't want to trade a big lunky cast iron unit for a big lunky, altho finely machined and polished Aluminum unit. That thing looks like a Bathtub.

I thought that MC had oddball threads for the lines, where did you find the correct tube nuts? I would like to do this to my vintage racer but without the booster...

Just metric threads that all of the new Cars use nowdays. The front was 12mm x 1.0 thread for the 3/16 line this one is common and I had it in My NAPA tube nut set.

The rear port was 12MM X 1.50 thread was a little harder to find (the parts stores are clueless around here). I found it on amazon , here is the link:
[ame]http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J2FU5P4[/ame]

Use Your old line and just do a Metric Bubble flair , if the new Tube Nut is too tight on the SAE Line just run a 1/4 Drill bit thru it. Works great.

sssuch said:

rtj said:

Any reason you say the plastic one is better technology than the alum wilwood cylinder?

For the same price I'd take the wilwood.

Click to expand...

I never said anything about the wilwood , I'm sure it's a fine quality part like everything else they make. I'm just after the lightest and cheapest part available . GM has built a shitload of C5/6 cars and parts are available anywhere . I don't want to trade a big lunky cast iron unit for a big lunky, altho finely machined and polished Aluminum unit. That thing looks like a Bathtub.

Click to expand...

You said you'd still have a 40 year old booster with the aluminum unit and I was wondering what made the new one so much better. Unless the rest of the car is already stripped of excess weight an ounce or two on the booster is unnoticeable.