Thread: Under the floor Master Cylinder - how to mount brake switch?

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Originally posted by brianrupnow
C9x---here is a direct quote from Horton Rod Shops catalogue, regarding the hydraulic brake-light switch that they sell.
"High quality switch. Much longer life than previous models available.Fits most cars.Only 20 to 50 pound pressure required instead of stock units that don't come on untill 60-100 pounds of pressure."

Don't know what to tell you there Brian.

I was quoting the brake supply guy at a parts house.

Regardless, when using silicon fluid, new hyd switches come on with light pedal pressure and a couple months down the line it takes more pressure.
Maybe 4-6 months until excess pressure is required.

I understand the silicon fluid emigrates past the seals fairly easy and the regular brake fluid does not.

Both fluids have their advantages and disadvantages and it's a buyers choice kinda deal depending on what you want to do.

I am leaning toward using regular fluid in the new project.

No probs with the silicon - other than the brake switch.
It has a little softer pedal than regular fluid.

I've driven a friends A roadster with the same brake pedal M/C setup and brakes as my car and his pedal is a little harder, but not much.

Either way, power brakes are not required on these little cars.

Pressure type switches were a cheap and effective way back in the '30's to operate a single brake light on a 6 volt system. Now, with that being said, why would an modern rodder want to use a 70 year old device to provide safety on their car? Hell man, mechanical brakes will stop you if you put enough pressure on them and have enough time to stop before you hit something. You don't go keeping those on your 32 roadster, do you? With 99.9% of the new vehicles having electric switches to operate their brake lights, why wouldn't you want the best deal for your rod?

Sometimes people just go on using the same old thing over and over for one reason only; because they don't know any better. If you are reading this now, we know that you have compute access and you have the world at your finger tips. So why not just punch in " brake light switches" into Google and see what you get. Here's a couple of switches I found that you may find usefull and easy to fabricate into your brake operation.

and this screw in type.

"Pressure type switches were a cheap and effective way back in the '30's"

Yep, and they still are.





"Now, with that being said, why would an modern rodder want to use a 70 year old device to provide safety on their car?"

Cause it still works great.





"Hell man, mechanical brakes will stop you if you put enough pressure on them and have enough time to stop before you hit something. You don't go keeping those on your 32 roadster, do you?"


Yep use em on the 23 bucket, 66 cobra, 53 FLH, 93FLH they stop fine.






"Sometimes people just go on using the same old thing over and over for one reason only; because they don't know any better"


And sometimes people stay with a winner.






It would be a boring world if we all did things the same way huh?, hope you enjoy building rods your way, I know I enjoy building em my way.

pressure switch in my '51 Chevy still works great, and it dosn't take very much preassure to work, comes on less than 1/4 of a pedal.