Installed Turner Brake system and still have to push extremly hard on the pedal to stop

[Jim S]

I just installed the Turner brakes on the front of my 72 Avanti replacing the factory Bendix brakes.  I also put new wheel cylinders, shoes and turned the drums on the back.  All air bleed out.  And low and behold there is absolutly no difference in braking.  I have to almost use both feet to stop the car! And it will creep forward in idle if I let up on the pedal a bit.  Would this be the indicator of a bad booster?  The original Bendix booster was replaced by the previous moron with a Ford Galaxie conversion unit.  It's getting vacuum, but I don't think it's working.  Before I spend another $400 on getting the original booster rebuilt, I need to know if it will solve the problem.

Edited yesterday at 11:23 PM by Jim S

[Dwight FitzSimons]

Assuming that everything else in the system is up to par it would have to be the booster.  I had a booster in my '64 Avanti go bad in Feb. and the symptoms were similar to your car.

Stephen Allen in Florida, at that time, had two rebuilt boosters in stock.  Their firm rule is that they have to have your rebuildable core in their hands before they will ship you a rebuilt one.  The rebuilt booster cured the problem and works well.

If you don't have an original core they can be found stashed away by SDC members.

--Dwight

[Zedman]

Hey Jim- you might want to look at these pages on Boosters before you go further... This has been helpful to me.

https://www.studebaker-info.org/Tech/Brakes/Boosters/avantiboosters.html

[Jim S]

With the engine off, I depressed the brake pedal and it was firm.  When I started the engine, the pedal went down.  I think this would indicate the booster was in fact working. So I'm stumped again as too why it still takes tons of pressure on the pedal to stop this car. I'm still open to suggestions.  I bleed all the air out startin with the passenger rear cylinder, driver's side, front passenger caliper and the driver's caliper.

Edited 8 hours ago by Jim S