Thunderbird Fuel and Water Pumps

Electric Fuel Pump

When the car sits for over a week at a time, the fuel bowl in the carburetor tends to drain. Since the car has a mechanical fuel pump, the engine must be cranked for a while for fuel to reach the bowl and start up. This is a problem for two reasons. First, the engine wear during cranking is greater since the engine is not spinning fast enough for oil pressure to build. Those 20 seconds of cranking is causing a lot of unnecessary wear to the internal engine components. Second, this goes against my objective for the car to have a more modern "feel" to it. Since my wife will also begin using the car, it must "just work". Fixing this issue means replacing the mechanical fuel pump with an electric pump.

Plans are to eventually replace the carburetor with a fuel injection unit. Fuel injection requires a high pressure fuel pump, while a carburetor requires a low pressure pump. Electric pumps are cheap enough to install an interim low pressure pump until I am ready to upgrade to the fuel injection unit. I paid about $20 at the local auto parts store for this unit.

Figure 1 - Electric Fuel Pump

Normally the electric pump should be placed as close to the fuel tank as possible. Mechanical fuel pumps are designed to pull fuel and are located close to the destination, the carburetor. Electrical fuel pumps are designed to push fuel and are located close to the source, the fuel tank. However, I ran across an electric pump conversion kit which used the unused clutch linkage mounting holes for the pump. This is located in the engine compartment. The instructions are HERE . Although this is not optimal, I decided to give it a try. This is much easier to mount and minimizes the amount of modification to the fuel lines. So far it seems to be working fine.

The pump relay is placed on the left fender well next to the brake booster. Figure 2 shows the pump relay before the brake booster is installed.

Figure 2 - Fuel Pump Relay On Front Left Fender

There is obviously a fuse (not shown) in the circuit as well. A 10 amp fuse seems to work fine with this pump.

Water Pump (Part 2)

In a previous blog I mentioned I am planning on upgrading the water pump since I had to remove it anyway to replace the old power steering pump bracket. At the time the new pump had not arrived. I have it now, it is shown alongside the old pump in Figure 3.

Figure 3 - Old and New Water Pump with Additional Vanes

The new pump (left) has additional vanes on the back of the impeller for higher coolant flow. An article I once read (but can no longer find) showed data indicating this modification actually worked. Another popular modification, a water pump baffle, did not work. In fact the baffle impeded the coolant flow rather then enhancing it. When I removed the old water pump, I found the previous owner had installed a baffle. This could be the cause of my overheating problems. I may not have needed the new water pump after all, removing the baffle might have been enough Oh well, I have the new pump now so I might as well use it. I will not know for sure if my (hopefully) better cooling is now due to the removal of the baffle or the enhanced water pump. As an engineer I would like to know, but it really does not matter. As long as the issue disappears I will be satisfied.

56 Thunderbird - 4 wheel power disc brakes

I have completed the upgrade to 4-wheel power disc brakes. I have, however, chosen to defer installing the power brake booster so I have open space for working on the steering and fuel pump. More on those projects later.

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The Lift

Before getting into the brake modification, a word about a very important tool. I have had a 4-post lift in my back yard for a few years now. This is mainly used for storage. I normally keep the 56 Thunderbird on the lift with the 60 Rolls Royce underneath. While working on cars, this storage tool doubles as an excellent repair tool.

Figure 1 - 1956 Thunderbird on 4-post lift

Using my lift, shown above, makes major upgrades MUCH easier. While it is possible to upgrade the brakes without the lift, I am simultaneously upgrading the steering to rack-and-pinion. The steering upgrade almost requires a lift. If you are doing this kind of work and have the space, consider getting a lift. I paid about $2200 for the lift, delivery, and installation. It has been well worth the cost.

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The Kit

I purchased the Kit from http://www.thunderbirdbrakeparts.com for $1600. I liked the fact that the kit did not require changing the front spindles so alignment or suspension would not be affected. Here is a picture of the complete kit from their website:

Figure 2 - ThunderBrakeParts.com 56 Tbird kit

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Front Brakes

The front brake kit retains the original 1956 drum brake spindles. This makes it easy if I, or a future owner, ever want to go back to the original drums.

Figure 3 - Front Disc Brake Kit

Figure 3 shows one wheel components for the front disc kit. Included are the rotor, caliper, wheel bearings, spindle adapter, and hardware. The kit is complete. I did not need any additional items other then bearing grease.

Shown in figure 4 is the front left wheel before removing the drum unit.

Figure 4 - Front Drum Brake

Once the wheel is removed, the drum is accessed by removing the wheel nut and pulling the drum and bearing unit.

Figure 5 - Hub Removed

Once the drum and bearing are removed, the next step is removing the brake components themselves. Fortunately, this is quite easy. After disconnecting the brake line from the slave cylinder, four bolts hold the brake unit to the spindle. Remove those and the brake unit is removed in one piece.

Figure 6 - Before cleaning

After dis-assembly the next half-day was spent cleaning. There is a grease fitting on the ball joints here. The last 50 years of pumping grease into these fittings without a complete cleaning shows. With the brake units out of the way, ALL the grease is now exposed. Figure 6 shows one of the fittings with this accumulated grease.

Figure 7 - After cleaning

Using a putty knife, brushes, and solvents, the war on grease is finally won. Figure 7 shows the same fitting much cleaner. It is not concourse, but at least is is no longer an embarrassment.

Figure 8 - Cleaned spindle ready for disc brake

The spindle is now ready for the adapter, rotor, and calipers. Once the bearing are packed with grease, all components bolt together easily.

Figure 9 - Completed front disc

The completed unit is shown in figure 9. The red seen on the outside of the disc brake shoe (inside the caliper) is a formula called "disc brake quiet". It minimizes the squeal sometimes caused when the brakes are lightly applied. It can me found at most auto parts stores.

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Rear Brakes

The rear brakes are not as important as the front on any car. The front brakes do 80% of the stopping force. On the Thunderbird, it is possible to leave the rear as drum units with little change in stopping power. Disc brakes require more brake fluid in the slave cylinders to stop, so a proportioning valve must be used to ensure the front discs receive enough brake fluid by restricting the flow to the rear drums. Rather then dealing with the proportioning valve, I chose the more elegant approach, install discs in the rear as well.

Figure 10 - Rear Disc Kit (Caliper, Rotor,Adapter)

The rear kit contains the same basic parts as the front kit. It is not as complete as the front kit. There is no adapter components for connecting the parking brake cable. The existing cable will not work without extensive modifications. Because the Thunderbird contains a live axle, the axle must be removed to bolt the adapter to the axle housing. This is easier then it sounds. I did, however, have to spend several hours grinding the adapter to fit the axle housing. Be prepared to make some "adjustments" if parts do not fit quite right.

Figure 11 - Rear Brake Drum

The rear drums simply slide off after the wheel is removed. They are held in place by only the wheel lug nuts.

Figure 12 - Drum removed exposing Brake Shoes

Once the drum is removed the axle is unbolted using the same 4 bolts holding the brake unit in place. First dis-connect the brake line from the slave cylinder and remove the parking brake cable. Dealing with the parking brake cable is actually one of the hardest parts of the conversion. The clips holding the original cable in place were rusted and would not budge. They were not accessible enough to cut. I just had to keep working them until they finally released the cable. The new calipers do not use the same clips or cable as the old units. There is no provisions in the kit for connecting the parking brake, although the disc brake calipers support a parking brake cable. You are on your own to get this properly connected. I bought a universal parking brake cable kit from eBay for about $80.

Figure 13 - Brake unit and axle removed

Once all components are removed, you are left with only the axle housing, as shown in Figure 13. At this point, make sure you test-fit everything and make adjustments as required. I spend several hours grinding part of the adapter plate to make it fit snugly against the flange on the axle housing. Spend the time to make a quality fit, as you do not want any part of your braking system to fail due to taking short cuts!

Figure 14 - Test fit rear brake caliper adapter

Once the adapter is in place, test fit the components again without and with the rotor in place. Again, minor adjustments might have to be made.

Figure 15 - Rear Disc Complete

It is finally done! The master cylinder and brake booster will also be replaced, but I chose to remove the old unit and wait to replace the new unit since the removal of the old booster opens a lot of space in the engine compartment for other projects. I will work on these other projcts before installing the new booster and master cylinder.