Power To Manual Brake Swap Questions

Stock2038

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Changing my Volare from power to manual brakes. I have fire wall plate and manual brake rod and new master cylinder. My problem is trying to connect the rod to the brake pedal. The two do not seem to be compatible. Is there a difference in a manual brake pedal and a power brake pedal? Or does anyone know how to make these two work together? Hopefully someone can help. Thank you.
 

Stock2038

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The brake pedal in the car has a bell crank or z bar type set up for the rod to bolt to and the manual brake rod seems to be way to long to work in this set up
 

Aspen500

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You don't need the z-bar with manual brakes. The rod goes from the master and over the pin on the pedal arm directly, then the retaining clip goes on.
My car has manual brakes and here's a pic of under the dash for reference.
Kind of tough to get a good shot of it though.
DSCF0001.JPG
DSCF0002.JPG
 

BudW

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The Z-bar is only to be used with cars with power brakes. If you use it on manual brakes, you will not have the energy/strength to press the brake petal down.

Sense power brakes are, well, power assisted, the Z-bar allows that power assist to allow double movement of brake petal (sense booster is assisting you with petal movement).

Adding the Z-bar also raises the brake booster up on firewall up 1½ to 2” – which is why the brake firewall support plate is needed (high for booster or low, without booster).

You could use power brakes without the Z-bar but petal movement would be twice as much as usual.
A side benefit of Z-bar is it raises brake booster up and away from engine more so.

There should be a rubber square cut O-ring or sleeve that goes over the end of master cylinder rod to keep it retained in the brake master cylinder.
BudW
 
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