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Hi Folks,

I purchased a remote brake fluid reservoir kit from Mr. Sanchez of Stonewall, LA. Contact info is in one of the pictures. Pricing was very reasonable. It included an extra cap for use in pressure bleeding. The cap used in the reservoir is the same size thread as used in the Treadle-Vac, so you can re-use that cap if you want, or use the vented one he provides, or (at least while parked) use the Bladder-style cap which isolates the system from the atmosphere I found in which was detailed in an earlier post:

packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=24577

This unit was designed for under-floor manual brake installations (for Hudsons originally I believe). I installed the unit using an L-bracket from a hardware store, slightly modified, using the existing holes for the drivers-side windshield washer pulley. Be careful to only take out one bolt at a time, always leaving one bolt in place, and you should not have any trouble, otherwise you may have to put the pulley back, which is a bit of a pain but doable.

Instead of the section of rubber hose in Mr. Sanchez' diagram I installed the unit once with the provided tubing and then measured and installed a solid piece of brake line, using the original installation as a template for bending. In my case that turned out to be a 20" long pre-flared piece that I purchased from NAPA.

I found I had to deepen (with a pipe tap) the threads at the cap down at the reservoir end so that I could screw the provided fitting down far enough such that it would fit under the steering column. I also had to do some work to the BTV reservoir cover gasket (basically taking it off, cleaning it up, and screwing it down really tight) to make that cover seal. I took the cover off, installed the cap and fitting, and installed the entire fitting/ cap/ cover/ gasket while the BTV unit was in place.

Tested this setup over a number of days and over 70 miles of combination freeway and in-town, seems to work well and contributes to piece of mind as I can observe easily if there is fluid loss and brake system maintenance is significantly eased.

Hope this is of interest.

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That looks to be a very nice kit and a neat install. One question I have for remote fills on BTVs including Packards option was what provisions if any were made in the BTV to accommodate the relief port.

In one of the many threads on BTV failures it was found the relief port was blocked by a gasket on some and that a rebuilder had been filling the port with silicone on others. At the time this was speculated to be the primary cause of fluid getting into the vacuum section if one of the seals failed. On the hydraulic side seal, if that seal failed and the relief port was blocked fluid under pressure would be forced into the vacuum side. If the vacuum side seal failed with a blocked relief port, instead of being able to draw air into the canister it would not be as big an issue but any fluid that did leak via normal seepage (which Bendix said was designed into the system to keep the seal moist) would be drawn into the canister.

With an absolutely full reservoir on the BTV thanks to the remote fill container keeping it full, the relief port will be submerged in fluid. The hydraulic side leak would still be able to push leaking fluid out to the reservoir but it seems as if a vacuum side seal failure would lead to a large influx of fluid being drawn into the canister since the remote fill and gravity would be feeding it.

I guess a primary question would be exactly how important is the relief port and was the speculation wrong and was it discontinued on later versions. The repro cylinder casting for the BTV sold by a vendor for another mfg does not even have the passage drilled.

Yes it's a good question. I was under the impression that, if Packard provided it as an option, it must be o.k. Was a remote reservoir available for any of the other makes? Didn't some of the other makes install the BTV at an angle so the relief port was covered by fluid whether or not a remote reservoir was fitted?

Folks interested in another option for a remote reservoir should check out the thread in BigKev's blog:

Remote Brake Reservoir, another way to do it

I like that can too. Do we have any source info?

I put that here:

Source Info for the "can" remote reservoir