Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Attention EVERYONE. I had a near Peter Biondo/ Woodro Josey top end crash in Ennis, TX LODRS DIV4 this past weekend. The master cylinder rod that attaches to the brake pedal (the factory style that has a standard clip style retainer) came out when the clip fell off. No brakes! Thankfully the Texas Motorplex has a long shut-down area and I ended up in the sand trap just feet away from the net.
I am posting this for the same reason Woodro Josey posted his...to REMIND everyone to climb under your dash and check for this. We are going to modify this to have a lock nut on it.

I was lucky and sustained no damage.

Gary Emmons
Lucas Oil Products
4403 C/SA

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Thanks for the heads up............ and very glad your situation had a happy ending.
Defintely a good idea to get under your car and look for loose fasteners.

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Gary, which car were you driving? Glad you are ok! It can be a horrifying ride. Jim

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Jim,
It was my 1998 Firebird.
Thanks,
GE

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Gary, glad you came out ok, and at least you had a good sand trap. Gary, let me add this observation, mine had a lock nut and apparantly over the years mine backed out so i would reccomend a clevis pin with a cottor pin and the pin needs to be very hard! Good Luck Gary, again Glad you came out ok!

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

glad you made it home safe Gary. Hate to see anything bad happen to good people. Tell your dad I still have the red 38' trailer for sale.

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Could someone post some pics of brake rod set-ups that did NOT perform as planned? Such as the ones that we're hearing about on here.

And then could someone post pics of stuff that DOES work? So far, my set-up has not caused any unplanned change of underwear. I'm in Woodro's age bracket and I'm not looking for any huge increase in the pucker factor! Thanks.

P.S. It just occurred to me that maybe a system like Allen Johnson's P/S'er would work real well as a back-up to the foot pedal brakes. I like it for staging too. All you'd need would be dual caliper rear brakes. Right?
Ken

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

We had dual caliper rear brakes on one of the Camaros, and they always gave some sort of trouble. We took off the second pair of calipers, and the problems went away.

I do not think there is any one particular "set up" that is giving problems.

I have often considered hanging a heim joint from the pedal bracket and running the rod through it, so that the rod could not fall out. However, that would not solve the problem of the rod getting out of adjustment.

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Gary, I sure did'nt know what happened till you told me, glad you were ok. Makes me think I need to go to the last turn, I sure would have made sure sure you were ok and help if I could. Always enjoy racing you and your brothers. See yall at next month.

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Glad to hear you are alright and it sounds like you got out of that one with minimal collateral damage.Always like hearing all the good stories about you guys and your dad.Thanks for the reminder to periodically inspect this kind of stuff. Hope to see you all sometime soon.

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Gary, do you remember that happeneing to Wayne Winfield at the old Houston International track? He was in his Hemi Cuda, the car was stopped by a tree athe end of the track. The track didn't even know he had wrecked and as he was walking back the safety people stopped him and told him he could not enter the track from down at the end. He just pointed towards his car and asked them why they wre still running when there was a wrecked car at the end of the track. This must have been around 83. I think you guys still had that Toyota station wagon,lol.

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

First of all, I am glad to hear that you and your vehicle seem to be OK. I have a question about emergency brakes that come stock in all cars? Did you put on racing rear brakes or are they stock ones from the factory and do they work? I will bet the NHRA safety will make it manditory that the emergency brakes from the factory work in Stock and SS cars in the near future and if they don't SHAME on them. It's not right for the racers to jeoperdize their race cars and maybe their lives to safe some weight. I'm not being a smart ***, but the old drum brakes in working order are better then nothing.
Casey Miles
248H E/S ("f" the 4 HP)

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Casey, have you ever applied an emergency brake on a vehicle at speed? When me and my pals were young we used to do it for "fun", well I can tell you what happens but maybe you should try it and see for yourself. The problem is not with the actual braking system it's with the M/Cyl. pushrod install, I've seen it many times and I'm sure I'll see it many more. There has to be some thought involved with this as just hooking up a rod without a rear stop to prevent the rod from falling out is just looking for trouble. I'd suggest now that this topic is "hot" everyone PLEASE take an evening and crawl up under the dash and really look at what they have, most may be suprised at what they find. Joe

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Gary, thanks for giving us the heads up. I had a brake issue with my super street car at Ennis Sat. night also, yet a little different. The bolts that hold the rotor to the hat on the right rear backed out and just about machined the caliber bracket in half. It was vibrating pretty bad in the shut down area and sounded like someone was under my car with a grinder. All of the bolts on both rotors were loose. They had all been lock tighted in with star washer but not safety wired. Now I know why those safety wire holes were in those bolts. I failed to realize that red lock tight will loosen up with heat. Please check your brakes guys and gals. These near miss accidents are what help others from serious accidents. Thanks for posting your experience Gary.

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Gary glad everything was ok!!! The way we fixed our mustangs was drill out the brake pedal rod and use a bolt and lock nut grade 8- 7/16. Then we built a positive stop to keep the brake pedal rod from coming out of the master cylinder. Hope this will help out some. Once again glad everybody was ok!!!

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

To add more on my post we used the aerospace adjustable brake rod. Thanks Steven Hall 4782 CSA

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Darrin,
I had a caliper bolt back out one time also. I always torque the caliper bolts and loctite periodically. Brakes are probably the most important thing on our racing equipment, but they do get over looked sometimes.

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

We had a rotor hat bolt back out last year and about chew the caliper bracket in half! Wilwood sent a new one and said it was fairly common. Shouldn't ever happen if you ask me. Just follow ALL directions during assembly and most of these things are avoidable. We didn't use the wire through the bolts either, thinking we would just check them periodically...didn't work.

PS: The way we discovered this was during staging, dad couldn't get the car to "creep" forward consistantly. Sometimes it would take a little throttle and the car would lurch forward, staging too deep. The bolt would hang up on the rear caliper bracket, causing an inconsistant drag. He was very fortunate something bad didn't happen.

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Mike, that is exactly the same thing that happened to me in Ennis. I was stagging the car in the second round and it would not roll forward into the beams until i gave it a little throttle, then it would roll and stop again. I thought for sure it was rock from that gravel we were pitted in that got hung up it the caliper, so I went ahead and stagged it anyway. It almost machined the bracket in half and slowed the car down .07. Yeah Cooter it's just one of those things that got overlooked. They will be wired soon!

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

A few years back at the Ennis Divisional our Station Wagon's master cylinder for some reason went out just at the finish line. Talk about scary, I can only imagine that happening in a faster stocker. Never the less we went ahead and got us a nicer one than an O'reilly rebuilt. Glad to hear everything turned out alright.

Re: Another Brake Failure in Stock @ ENNIS DIV4
 

Just to throw another hat in the ring, I bought my master cylinder from Master Power. The "seat" for the brake pushrod is a hole that is about 1" deep. It came with a rod that had a clevis on one end for the brake pedal, and a bare end to cut to length. Due to the depth of the hole, the rod will not come out without unbolting the MC and pulling it forward. There is not enough room between the pedal and the MC to get the rod out from the interior side. Believe me, I tried it!

I had a good friend put a super nice 9-second '72 Buick GS into a tree (I think it was at Mid-Michigan)because his brake rod came out. The whole front end was pushed back into the firewall. He was in the hospital for a long time, and still suffers back pain, now three years later. We all checked our stuff after that.

Glad to hear Gary was alright. I've always been a fan of the Emmons boys.