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Thanks Howard. The 1/4” is correct, but it’s a little while more before the compensating port is covered in the master cylinder and brake pressure actually starts to build.

Hmm…..

So the good news is my brake light switch works. The bad news is that it only activates when the pedal is like 60% of the way down. This corresponds with pedal feel as the pedal is extremely light for the first at least 1/3 of travel.

EDIT: I figured out what’s wrong. There’s supposed to be one quarter inch of free play before the pressure stroke starts. I adjusted it where there is a quarter inch of free play (at the pedal) before the actuator touches the piston. Currently this means I have one and three-quarter inches of free play before the pressure stroke. Once I take up this slack I think it will be fine.

Does anyone know if this idler linkage between the bell crank and the transmission selector shaft arm is original? It’s a bit hard to see but it has a threaded adjustment so is like the Caribbean dual carb linkage, though not the same. I thought the cars had a fixed linkage here.

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You need multiple passes for a system that was completely apart. On my 1951 Henney-Packard, I pressured-flushed the brakes just once and the pedal feels like stepping on a plum so clearly needs more!

After I made the brake linkage adjustment, the pedal stops a reasonable distance from the floor and has a pretty good feel. I wouldn't be surprised if things could be slightly improved but with the feel and travel basically nominal, I don't have much reason to try it.

I spoke with Ross and that threaded adjustment rod is not factory. It doesn't look homemade and it's pitted enough with rust that it's presumably off of "something" as well as being very old. To add to the fun, I realized my selector shaft arm was on backwards, then after that, decided to swap the arm for the improved type that reduces the chance of getting stuck in park. For reference, the improved type is shifted 1/2" forward compared to the original type.

I realized this evening that I have the wrong oil pan on my car. How is that even possible, you may ask? Well it's a Hash engine and for some reason the pan is different. The consequence is that the pan interferes with the steering linkage. Fortunately I didn't add oil yet and I have a spare pan on the 352 engine that I got out of the car, but I will have to wait until next weekend to install it as I don't have spare gaskets up here. Pretty sure I have some at the shop, though. The photo with the steering arm below is the Hash type; I’m holding the linkage as far as it will go but it needs like another inch.

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Yes, there is a threaded adjustment in the linkage between the idler lever and the gearshift shaft lever.
In your picture your red arrow is pointing to the other linkage, between the idler lever and the manual valve lever. That is just a fixed linkage.

Right, at some point someone substituted it with yet another threaded linkage on my car, resulting in an odd adjustment process, basically reverse-engineering the intended leverage situation.

It may be noted that the new type 55th exterior selector shaft arm 6484069 has the hole 1/2" forward of the old type 470038. The length of the arm is the same so the hole is also slightly down, accordingly.

I realized also that there is a "hole" in the bottom of my bell housing, that when looking inside, has a hemispherical outline. Eventually figured out that if you look at the bell housing, there is a large and small plug. The large is for the front pump suction circuit and I'm pretty sure the small one next to it is for the recirculation circuit. Looking at the drawing, the bottom of the plug is missing but the interior part remains. No clue how this happened. Since it's part of the pump suction circuit, failure would basically cause the transmission to stop operating properly, so it would be pretty obvious. If it's a problem then I can just tap it and install a pipe plug. Another feature on these done to have $0.0002 cents over tapping and installing a plug from the factory...

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I think there are only a couple of the domed caps which I assumed were some special type of plug that was pressed in to seal the passage after machining. If you have an open hole not one of the indicated test ports because something fell or was blown out then definitely installing a threaded plug would be the easier fix but if the passage is closed then it should be OK.

Right. See the cross-section drawing, it's hemispherical above but flat below. I'm missing the flat part.

Hopefully not a problem, but who knows. This bell housing was off of a transmission I got that someone else bought as a spare. Inspection revealed very old but reasonable condition transmission fluid (not red, but clear!) and an overall low amount of wear. So hopefully this was not "the problem" on that transmission. We will just have to find out, I guess. I would hate to try and extract the other half if not strictly necessary.

I wonder if the type of plug might have been changed after the drawing was made. This less than great photo from figure 173 in the SM is too blown up for a clear view on the website but looking at the smaller version shows enough to make me think it doesn't look like there was any flat piece in the hole -- at least none visible near the end of the holes.

Here’s a photo. It’s supposed to look like the one next to it.

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