Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:36:42 -0500
Reply-To: Tom Hargrave <thargrav@HIWAAY.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Tom Hargrave <thargrav@HIWAAY.NET>
Subject: Re: brake question
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
This is a classic symptom of a master cylinder starting to fail.
Tom
Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone
-----Original Message-----
From: Sheilah Rogers <sheilah@SHEILAH.ORG>
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 2:05 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Subject: brake question
Howdy Folks,
I'm wondering if I can bother the list's hive mind for some answers
(that I already could not find via the search tool)?
Basically something went weird with my brakes and my mechanic cannot
reproduce the problem.
So I was driving in ~80F weather, up and down a not so steep road but
some curves, about 30 minutes of said road was unpaved, van warmed up of
course. Brakes no problem. (not sure if weather matters but there it
is.) I drove about 45minutes total here.
Then I got on the highway for another 45 minutes-ish. When I went to
slow down a bit, it was like my brake peddle wasn't responding with its
normal sort of push-back and instead, the brake pedal just dropped with
no brake functionality about 80% to the floor before it engaged. Once
engaged, I could slow the van down but of course I then had the pedal to
the medal just to slow down a bit.
Being on a quiet highway I kept going, figured I'd pull over in a bigger
town and at least I can stop the van. But after 30minutes, the brake
resumed normal so I just continued driving to my mechanic's.
The next day he could not reproduce the problem, after warming up the
van, driving on hills, 30minutes or so. He says 50% chance it's the
master cylinder. But he's not sure (???) what else it would be since the
brake fluid seems fine.
Anything else that should be ruled out or should I just have the master
cylinder replaced and hope it doesn't give out (50% chance?!) the next
time I'm driving on presumably worse mountain roads. I don't feel safe
or comfortable with this plan.
Does anyone want to weigh in at all?
Mucho thanks appreciated.
Sheilah
1986 Westy water-cooled vanagon: Vanna White.
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