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Brake Pedal Rod Painted or Natural

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Joe_Healey

Joe_Healey

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I'm restoring a factory 100M and can't seem to find the proper finish for the brake rod from the master cylinder to the pedal. Also there is no mention of the finish for the rods and fitting to the clutch. I have tried the concurs guidelines and the Anderson/Moment book, both indicated the master cylinder is black but nothing else. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Joe
 
Well, I just went out to the garage to check mine. Cleaned/scraped off 100k+ miles of dirt and didn't see any paint. That doesn't mean it wasn't painted when new.....
 
Good Greg I was wondering why in the world would you want to paint that push rod???
 
Keoke said:
Good Greg I was wondering why in the world would you want to paint that push rod???
Click to expand...

Though I have no intention on having the car judged and the rods are off the car and the temperature outside has been in the low teens and my wife wants me out of her hair and I'm bored and I like to do things right and ........ You get the gist.

Joe
 
Right- even if you never intend to have the car judged usually it's just as easy to do things right (painting the rod black) vs. wrong (cleaning it, not painting it and having it rust or applying a clear coat so it won't rust). When I used to do restorations as a business (Vintage Restorations, here on Long Island NY) back in the '90s some customers would say "I don't need a perfect, correct restoration." I used to say OK, what do you want me to do wrong?"

Usually doing it right was no more difficult than doing it wrong.
 
I am old enough to remember these cars when they were new or lightly used, not 100s, but later 60s Healeys, MGs, Triumphs, I do not think I ever saw I painted push rod coming out of a master brake or clutch cylinder on any of them. They were always au natural, I don't recall them rusting on a non-neglected cars either. Glad to be corrected if someone has the real data on it, but I would make an educated guess of not painted.
 
Glemon, other than the Healey 100, the vehicles you mentioned all have top-swing pedal assemblies. The master cylinders used in these setups usually have an integral, one-piece, non-adjustable pushrod & clevis . The pushrod is usually made of some sort of plated or coated steel. The master cylinder is generally mounted directly adjacent to the pedal arm.

The Healey 100 has bottom pivot pedals. On left hand drive cars, placing the master cylinder directly adjacent to the pedal assembly would have put it very close to the exhaust down pipe. Brake fluid + Heat = Trouble. The solution was to move the brake master forward on the frame rail to the point it is mounted ahead of the rearmost point of the left inner wheel arch. This position required a very long pushrod extension to connect master cylinder to pedal. It is this 12+ inch long extension that is being referenced in this thread. On a right hand drive 100, the pushrod extension is much shorter. The actual pushrod that is part of the master cylinder is not what the OP is talking about painting.
 
Thanks Craig, I used to have a 100 not that long ago, the brake master and mechanism was one of the (few) things I never took apart, fixed, or replaced on the car, so didn' recall that, it does sound a little different, I did recall, of course, that my car had the bottim hinged brake and mechanical bottom hinged clutch.
 
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