This will be a bit of a novel, but we’re looking for some suggestions.
My car has the stock power front disc setup.
A couple of years ago, my master cylinder gave up, draining one reservoir and activating the brake warning light. My mechanic at the time swapped in a new master cylinder but he couldn’t get the brake warning light to reset so he snapped off the pins in the switch, plugged everything back together and declared it fixed. I later installed a new switch and I’ve just been driving around with the light on since then.
Last week I was having my mechanic do some other work and I asked him to take a shot at resetting the brake warning light. He discovered the master cylinder was leaking once again so that was swapped with a new one (NAPA or OReilleys). Then he started looking at the booster and found a bunch of trash and fluid in there so that was swapped with an identical unit from Booster Dewey. He put everything back together and bled the system but he still couldn’t get the switch piston to move, so I took the block home and rebuilt it and the proportioning valve with the kit from WCCC.
Now everything is back together. My switch is bad from driving around with it on for so long, but my mechanic stuck a camera down there and it looks like the piston is pretty close to where it should be. He was able to bleed all four corners, but the pedal doesn’t feel right. There is about an inch of travel with nothing, then the pedal gets very firm and seems to stop higher than it should.
Check the rod adjustment between the booster and the master cylinder. Make sure the rod is installed in the booster correctly as well. The shop manual tells you how to make a tool to check the rod adjustment.
Thanks. I think my mechanic said he was going to recheck the rod adjustment today. He said he sets it by putting grease on the end of the rod and checking to make sure the grease isn’t disturbed when assembled. Is this method OK?
It seems my mechanic was able to get the rod set with his old school grease method. The pedal still didn’t feel quite right, but after I drove it and did a couple stops it felt much better. We think driving it finished centering the piston in the distribution block.
Anyway, if you guys don’t know when your distribution block and proportioning valve were last rebuilt, you should plan on doing it next time you’re doing brake work. My brakes worked OK, but everything in there was frozen up pretty good when I took it apart. The WCCC kit and video make it easy.
Also I need to give a plug to Booster Dewey. He answered his phone on the second ring, had my booster in stock, and I received it the next day.
Yes, peanut M&M’s - I think they were labelled booster nuts haha. We couldn’t find the '69 booster anywhere. My mechanic originally got one from NAPA that was close, but it would have moved the master cylinder forward about 1/2" and he would have had to modify the brake lines so I was happy to get the correct one back in there.