Scarlet

[Scarlet]

Another area you can improve on the standard brakes is to try and reduce the mechanical slop in the pedal box. I am not sure if all Avengers have this problem, what was happening is that when you are pressing on the brake pedal and then press the clutch pedal in you can feel the brake pedal moving around. on Scarlet it was quite noticeable.
I removed the pedal shaft and because of the diameter difference between the shaft and the hole that it goes through you will not eliminate the sloppy movement but you can reduce it quite a bit.
First make sure the shaft is not worn, I had a spare pedal box so was able to get a good one, what I did was insert an extra wavy spring washer from the spare pedal box between the large washer and pedal box bracket assembly, this extra wavy washer went on the brake pedal side to take up the slop, the pin that connects the pedal to the booster was also fitted with a washer before the split pin to take up the slack.
Grease up the shaft ,pedal bushes ,brake booster pin and clutch pivot and put it all back together again.
Another thing is to set up the bracket with the brake light switch on as per the workshop manual, you can adjust the brake light switch in or out to give you a greater range of adjustment.
Both pedals now feel smoother and the brake pedal feels more direct with only a minimum amount of movement felt in the brake pedal when pressing in the clutch pedal.
It wasn't in the easiest of places to get at but I think it was worth the effort.

[oldschool]

Another good mod is to put in a wagon master cylinder, has a 20.6mm bore compared to 19mm for a sedan one...and the bigger Chrysler booster of course.

[Scarlet]

Hi Ross, I believe the 20.6 mm master cylinder is dual circuit?, I will probably leave that side of things as they are but  the larger booster will eventually find its way in there.
I think at the end of the day whatever I do the the stock brakes they will still only be "adequate" but better that before.

[azza1600]

Hi Steve, is that a recon rack that you fitted?

[Scarlet]

Hi ,no it is just a used but good condition later model Chrysler rack that has longer rack arms to suit the longer Chrysler track control arms, it just has new gaiters which Ross gave me, fresh oil and new tie rod ends. I painted it Royal blue which was a good match for the original colour.
I did enquire about what is still available new but they never did sell any new rack parts separately back in the day, you could only buy a reconditioned rack which stocks have long ago dried up.

[Nikolai]

Hey - where did you get the steering rack mount from?

[Scarlet]

Hi ,I bought mine off e-bay ,none are listed at the moment. Mal Stuart Motorsport  and OKane Cars Motorsport also list them.
I got a WOF after I installed it, they had no problem with it

[Scarlet]

I bought the larger brake booster, I think only the later Chrysler wagons with dual circuit have them (not 100% sure on this)
They are a 1" larger and are a straight bolt in swap ,picture shows size difference with the original booster.

[Scarlet]

And here it is installed in Scarlet.
The one snag is that the accelerator linkage now hits the larger booster limiting revs to about 2300rpm, I have not had a look at trying to sort things out at this stage.

[avenga]

The larger booster and dual circuit brakes came with all Chrysler Avengers.

I did the same conversion on my '75 Avenger except I used the Chrysler dual circuit master cylinder also. (See here for photos http://www.avenger.co.nz/forum/index.php?topic=13.msg5557#msg5557 )

[Scarlet]

The throttle linkage pivot pin was loose, the reason why the control rods were hitting the booster. Once I tightened that up it pulled the linkage back far enough to clear the booster. It must have also been the reason for an annoying rattle in that area as I haven't heard it since I tightened it up.
While on the subject of annoying rattles, I spent some time trying to locate and fix them by driving around trying to listen out for them and by thumping every panel on the car. Some rattles you will never fix because its just the way they are on old cars.
The biggest culprits were the horn rattling against the front panel, bending the horn bracket cured that one.
The other rattle came from the back which was caused by the hand brake cable slapping on the floor as the diff went up and down, I just re-routed the cable to go over the diff and not under it, that took care of that problem.
And then we have the wind noise caused by the shrunken door seal rubbers, I did not want to spend money on new and expensive door rubber seals as its not a rare or show car so I just cut the seal in the middle as shown in the photo and pushed them into the corners properly.
All up these simple improvements have made quite a noticeable difference to the driving comfort at open road speeds

[oldschool]

Reid and Twiname have door and boot seals Steve, about 1/2 the price of Para Rubber.

http://www.retwine.co.nz/products/450-door-boot-seals

[Scarlet]

I picked up this gearbox from Ross last Saturday.
It is a very early Avenger gearbox which means it has semi close ratios, the later gearbox has wider ratios. I do not know at what point they changed the ratios.
They also recommend to use the later gearbox tail housing as they are slightly stronger, the early ones supposedly cracked from drive-shaft vibration at high rpm.

Early ratios               Later ratios
1st 3.317 to 1           1st 3.538 to 1
2nd 2.029 to 1           2nd 2.165 to 1
3rd 1.366 to 1           3rd 1.307 to 1
4th 1.000 to 1           4th 1.000 to 1

[oldschool]

Very interesting Steve. I just found out there's 3rd type of gearbox after reading through my Chrysler Handbook!
I think the gearboxes went as follows:
1970-72 First semi-close ratio in the 1250/1500 Sedans until the Wagon was introduced in 1972
1972-77 Second wider-ratio in the 1250/1300 and 1500/1600 Hillman models
1977-81 Second wider-ratio also used in the Chrysler 1600 models
1977-81 Third wider-ratio used in the Chrysler 1300 and had these ratios:
1st 3.894:1
2nd 2.382:1
3rd 1.527:1
4th 1.000:1
It looks like they widened the ratios for a lower first gear, to compensate for the change from 4.11 to 3.89 diffs in the Chrysler 1300 models, while leaving the Chrysler 1600 ratios unchanged, going from a 3.89 to a 3.7 diff in the sedan and a 4.11 to a 3.89 in the wagon.

[Scarlet]

Cheers for the above gearbox information Ross.
The weekend project ,paint and install this strut brace