Brake booster removal & replacement
 

1974 TA:
What is the procedure for removing and reinstalling a brake booster on early 70’s F-body?

Can this be done without removing hood/fender/inner fender?

Thanks

To answer your question: Yes it can be done leaving the hood and fender on, but it will take much longer and is very tedious to get access to the 4 nuts that holds the booster to the firewall. If it were me, this is what I would do: Use a marker to mark where the hood lines up with the hood hinges. Remove the hood. Then mark the driver side hood hinge to where it mates to the fender and remove the hinge. Do not remove the fender or inner fender as this is not required. Remove the two nuts that secures the Master cylinder to the booster. then gently pull the m/c away from the booster but don't kink the brake lines. You can tweak them a bit if you must. Disconnect the push rod from the brake pedal and then remove the 4 nuts that holds the booster to the firewall. Do your self a favor and get a ratcheting box wrench (9/16?) to remove the 4 nuts. Good luck.

Thanks for your guidance. I will follow your instruction on this. I need to recruit a couple more bodies to help with hood r&r, but now I am not going in blind.
Much appreciated!

Jon

Good Luck, good advice given, when I did mine it seemed like 3 bolts were pretty easy to get out, the 4th took some patience.

I just replaced my booster in my 76 TA. No need to remove hood. Yes use a ratchet box
wrench. I left the M/C intact and used some rope to hang it from the hood brace.
Did it by myself in less than 3 hours. Good luck.

TA Greg

I did the same thing no need to remove the hood or the hood hinge.

Just take your time and don’t get pissed off and definitely get a ratcheting wrench

Hey, thanks guys.

Glad not to have to remove hood.

Questions continued-

The ratchet wrench, is it a straight/flat wrench, or an offset(dog-leg) one?

Did you get to the bottom two nuts from the top-side?

How did you start the nuts back onto the studs on the lower positions?

Thanks again

Brake booster removal & replacement
 

Get the thinnest ratchet wrench you can and one with locking head tilt is preferable. Tape the bolts into the wrench from the backside to start. You may also need a shorty non-ratcheting wrench. 3 to 4 hours and you should be done. We swapped the repop on my 1972 Formula a couple weeks ago with a restored original.

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Thanks Bob, much appreciated!

Bob, where did you get it restored?

Steve Gregori at Brakeboosters did it.

http://brakeboosters.com/

Thank you, looks like I will be sending them mine pretty soon.

This is MUCH MUCH easier without the hood and LH hood hinge in the way. The wiring bulkhead needs to be removed. Using a high quality quick ratio ratcheting wrench, it should come out fairly easy. I rounded one of the nuts on my car due to the sprayed sound deadener on the firewall, which ended up on all of the nuts. Even with that, it took less than a couple of hours.

Update?
 

1974, did you get the job done and how did it go?

I was able to get the booster removed without removing any body panels. The 9/16 ratchet wrenches made that possible. I am hung up right now with the new booster flange bolt holes not having the same pitch between them as the original. One side does not want to fit over the studs. I have contacted TheRightStuff tech support and am waiting to here back. I will update this as work progresses.

Damn, just noticed you are in Ripley. I’m in Scott Depot.

I had the same problem with the repop that was on the Black Car and had to open up a hole or holes with a die grinder. I’ll get a picture for you this morning showing what you need to do as the repop booster is still here in the garage since being replaced last month. It was from Inline Tube.

Here’s a picture of the reworked lower mounting holes.


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Bob, It looks like both vendors use the same manufacturer. Opening up the already present slot on that side with a die grinder is what I planned to do, but thought I’d wait to see what their Tech Assistance said. I don’t like the idea of grinding through the plating.
Yeah - Scott Depot - Your not too far from me.

OK - Finally got back home to work on this. Completed the booster, master cylinder and combination valve install. Thanks guys.

I am at a standstill on brake bleeding though...
- master cylinder bleeds fine
- rears bleed fine
- fronts will not build pressure to bleed (pressure is at outlet on m/c) - thinking it must be some step I’m missing with combination valve but I can’t identify what...grrr

Any guidance is appreciated

Jon