Wheel cylinder

Ajax

Bigger Hammer
Dec 15, 2010
27
Jamestown NY
Willys Model
Willys Year:
So i have a leaky wheel cylinder on the passenger side of my 53 delivery sedan and have been looking around for a new one. I didn't think it would be too hard to find one, but all the ones i see for my vehicle have horizontal mounting holes on the back side. Mine has the mounting holes strait across from each other, same with the ones on the back. The rear also has e-brake cables going into the backing plates, so i assume someone at one point has done a bit of upgrading to the vehicle. My question now is how do i get the right stuff. The guy i got if from said he thought they were Bronco brakes, not sure about the year though. I havn't taken anything apart yet because i didnt want to get the brakes ripped apart and then have it sitting around in pieces while i track down parts. Or should i just do a whole brake kit and replace everything? If so where should i get one from?
 
Robert,NAPA will have wheel cylinders as well as the supplyers that support this forum,it is a good idea to rebuild or replace all of them because if one is a problem the others are getting ready to be soon probably,you may even find part numbers on the tech section.....good luck Jim
 
Sounds like the previous owner upgraded to 11 inch self adjusting brakes. Take the wheel cylinder to the parts store and try to mach it up with some Bronco wheel cylinders. Remember if you get a set for the front and rear, the fronts will have a larger inside diameter than the rears , but will look the same on the outside.
 
Mine has 1960 Ford F-100 rear brakes and Willys 11" in the front. Clean the hub real good and you may see the FoMoCo logo (Ford Motor Co.) on the outside. My advice is don't skimp on the brake system and change everything including the master, shoes, cylinders and lines. If you don't have a dual master you're taking a huge risk to begin with, once you get out on the road and heat everything up the weakest link will fail. These drum brakes work great but they do need more maintenance than modern braking systems. The old brake lines corrode from the inside out, the same with the master cylinder. At the very least do a rebuild kit on the master. It's simply a safety issue and you don't want to chance it.

http://www.fordification.com/tech/image ... ont_01.jpg

"Mommy, Daddy's Jeep goes real fast but it don't stop so good", is not what you want to hear at the dinner table, trust me. Good Luck.
 
Someone who owned it before me replaced the master cyl with a dual and redid all the lines, everything there is still new and shiny. I assume its been in the past 5 years by the way it looks, but thats just a guess. The brake pedal was changed also and the master is bolted to the firewall. Everything seems to be in good working condition as far as i can tell. But i guess if im going to replace a wheel cylinder i should probably do them all. Later this week ill see if i can match mine up with a Bronco one at Napa or Autozone and go from there.
 
Rockauto.com is really good about using a photo of the actual part and not just a generic picture. They also are good about giving bore sizes etc. I have used their site to identify mystery parts before.
 
Wow so ok... I took off my wheel cylinder to try and identify it. It luckily has a big "DELCO" on it with the part number 5453821 just below. When i looked up the part number i found out its actually for a 56-59 corvette. So that doesn't really help me out much, except that i know what wheel cyl to get now. The shoes are manual adjust not a self adjusting upgrade like i thought they would be. So now i have to find out if they are original, (probably not) or something else. And what they are off of. It looks like its maybe not Ford brakes like i was told?
 
I got my wheel cylinders. I bought ones for a 56-59 vette and they matched up perfect. So did the ones from a 73 bronco but i went with the vette ones because they were cheep. I managed to look at a bunch of pictures of shoes and backing plates on a few sites and matched up the shoes with some from a 73 bronco as well. Im still not sure about the backing plates yet, but im going to use the ones i have. They were originally 4 hole mounting but someone drilled them for 6 hole, seems to work. Gonna do a bit of work on it tonight and see how everything goes.
I don't even want to think about the rear brakes yet. I have no idea where any of that stuff came from either. Im gonna need a right side e-brake cable too. Suppose i'll be matching that one up at a parts store.
 
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