Brake Questions

[Glenn 'Stinky' Stankevicius]

Having fitted up a fair few torana brake components, I wanted to find out if it is necessary/recommended to install the safety(?) fitting that toranas have. It looks like a distribution block and sits directly under the master cylider in LC/LJ Toranas, it also has a terminal for a wire.

My understanding is that this cuts fluid if there is a leak in the front or rear circuits and grounds the terminal that would operate an tell-tale light on the dash.

[mcl1959]

It is a safety switch and relies on equal pressure on both sides of the switch.  If one circuit fails, there is a pressure differential and the light is activated on the dashbord.  This should not be confused with the proportioning valve on later Toranas which has a larger round section at the end which limits pressure to the rear brakes under heavy applications.

The switch can be left out unless the car is going through engineering, in which case they often require a brake fail light.
On the other hand the proportioning valve should be retained on a stock brake system as rear brake lock up could occur under certain circumstances if it is deleted.

Ken

[Glenn 'Stinky' Stankevicius]

Thanks Ken, that's a much better explanation than I was given before. I think I will go for the original safety setup.