Steel Soldiers::Military Vehicles Supersite - View Single Post

steelsoldiers · 10-16-2009, 06:02

I have been searching for air brake chambers with no real success. People either wanted too much money for the chambers or had them listed in the system, but didn't have any on hand. I went to my local NAPA Truck and showed them what I was looking for. Out came the huge Bendix book. He took some measurements and found a match. Problem is Bendix doesn't stock them so it would be a custom run and could take a month

I decided to try my hand at rebuilding a chamber. I ordered a couple of new actuator diaphragms from NAPA for around $3/piece. I tore into one last night to see what I had to work with. That sucker was full of rust! Thankfully, Rockwell painted their brake chambers on the inside too so most of the rust scale came right off. Once I had it apart, I took it to the kitchen sink and scrubbed all of the parts with a brass bristle brush. I got it looking pretty nice so back to the living room for reassembly (yes, my wife is understanding and working on truck bits in the house is nothing new

). I installed the new diaphragm, stuck the high pressure half on top of that, installed the clamp ring, and torqued down the clamp bolt. Viola! An almost new brake can that you can build in your living room!! I only wish I would have brought the other one home too. Now, I have to redo it on the ground.

Just in case anyone needs to know, the brake chambers are Type-12 Wedge Brake Chambers and they take a Rockwell 2297D2448 Diaphragm (or Midland N-20166 T-12). There is only one moving part inside the chamber and that is the actuator rod which is machined out of heavy steel so there is very little to go wrong with these things.

Here are some photos of course!