1968 brakes

I just bought a 1968 jeep with 33" tire and 4.88 gears it also has a 225 buick and a turbo 350 auto trans with a siftkit. I am haveing trouble getting it to stop even at a full stop it eventhing i can do to keep it from rolling. The brakes feel like your pushing on power brakes with out the vaccum working.

I have read that the brakes are not the greats on jeepbut done this sound normal?

 

na somethings wrong. unless your idle is too high and the auto tranny wont disengage. usually what you describe is related to the master cylender . always try bleading the brakes real good before you pull anything apart

 

yeah it sounds like you have air in the system.

 

The 10" brakes are ok. You have to realize that manual brakes take a lot more pedal force than power brakes. But around town especially, they stop fine.

I would instead suspect that you have fluid on the linings or some other problem. You kinda have to expect to have to renew the brakes on any used car that you buy that has drum brakes. I would not hesitate to yank the drums and see what I had.

I also believe that manual drum brakes with an automatic is going to prove highly inadequate under many conditions. Keeping pressure on the pedal all the time in stop-and-go traffic is going to get tiresome, regardless of whether they work right or not. Power boost plus bigger brakes would be high on my priority list.

I'm not an automatic transmission expert, but I wonder how the PO has set up the TH350. You should not need a heavy pedal to hold back the Jeep at idle. You also want to keep your idle speed adjusted down low so that you are well below the stall speed of whatever converter is in the TH350.

 

It is quite possible one or more wheel cylinders are 'frozen.' (Corroded)

That will give a hard pedal with little braking.