Power brakes conversion

[shelby987]

I am trying to put a brake booster assembly on a 1955 chevrolet series II pickup (on a limited budget). Can anyone tell me the differnce between the boosters sold by chevy duty and the mastercylinder/booster combinations that I can buy on ebay? Is there any additional hardware that I would need to buy to make a conversion using such a booster? In the pictures I have seen, the rod attached to the back of the booster seems to be significantly longer (chevy duty) than the rods on the rear of the universal booster, is this something that I can take off of the existing manual setup?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7938748588&category=33566
(just an example of what i have been looking at).

I have drum/drum brakes, and have been told that I can hook the lines up directly to the master cylinder because I do not require a proportioning valve, is there anything else that I should look into buying for a conversion of this type?
Thanks

 

[bigmoe]

Shelby987, I've been looking into this one myself. I was talking to a guy with a 59 who used a Chevy S-15 master cyl and booster in the original location. He had to fashion a homemade frame/ pedal bracket and he used the original pedal. it also needs a proportioning valve.

Murray

 

[smoov330]

Shelby987, I have a 56 and am going to install a new master cyl and booster from CPP. It has the bracket and port. valve ready to go for $299. If you are running a 6cyl you might not have enough vaccum for the booster to work correctly so you might want to consider just a manual master cyl. The old drum brakes, even when they'er rebuilt, aren't that safe. somthing to think about...Ed

 

[ljw]

I have a large cam on my 383 and I installed an electric vacuum pump to supply constant vacuum for the brakes. It works great but makes audible noise(and runs contantly)