December 15, 2013 @ 19:34 EST

More vehicular insanity

It never fails to come in pairs; both vehicles crap out at once. After my car's tail-light was taken out by a falling tree (seriously!) I switched to driving my truck around while waiting for the new tail lamp assembly to arrive.

Until, while running a quick after-lunch-errand at work in the truck, the brakes suddenly, completely, foot-to-the-floor failed as I was pulling up to a stop light in central Broward. ....crap.

I quickly discovered the parking bake still worked. So, weighing my options while waiting for the light to change, I decided the most expedient solution would be to head straight home instead of back to the office...via I-95. That route involved the least amount of braking, and if traffic got worse, I could just pull off the road and get a tow truck a little closer to home.

As I pulled off onto my exit (16 miles later) the brakes started sorta working again, so I didn't have to rely on the parking brake until I hit my driveway. I then switched over to my non-road-legal car and drove back to work to finish my day.

After work, it was time for some diagnostics. The brakes were completely dead again but the fluid levels were nominal, the power booster was doing its thing, and there were no apparent leaks.

All signs pointed towards an internally-leaking master cylinder, a symptom supported by the dark brown sludge sloshing around in the resivour. So, I ordered the parts indending to do the swap myself. No big deal; I've done this sort of thing before.

After some shipping delays due to the massive snow and ice storms up north, over the course of a few evenings I installed the new booster then bench-bleed and installed the master master cylinder. All that remained was to bleed the rest of the system.

That was the plan until I discovered that the bleeder screws for both rear wheels were rusted in place and completely unmovable, necessating replacing the wheel cylinders. Then I discovered that one of the brake lines going into said cylinders was also rusted into place.

...All I wanted to do was bleed the system, and I ended up having to replace most of the rear end in order to do so:

  • Master Cylinder (the original failure)
  • Power Booster
  • Pair of drum brake cylinders
  • Pair of drum spring rebuild kits
  • A 40" length of 3/16" of brake line with 3/8-24 fittings (prefabbed, thankfully) that I had to bend into shape.
  • Rear brake hose + manifold block
  • Three quarts of brake fluid (1/4th qt remaining)

Bleeding the system proved to be a significant challenge, and it resulted in a truly epic amount of sludge flushed out. That said, the truck is finally safe to drive, albeit with a still-spongy brake pedal incapable of locking the wheels up. As soon as I buy more fluid and rope in a volunteer to help, I'll re-bleed all four corners and that, as they say, should be that.

There's also evidence that the rear-wheel anti-lock (RWAL) system is flaky, but I'll hold off judgement on that until after another bleeding pass.


Posted by Solomon Peachy | Permanent link & Comments | File under: Life and other BS