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Figured out the hard brake pedal problem. My car had normal brake pedal feel for the first few miles then becaame very hard as if you had a bad brake booster. I had checked the booster in the driveway and it functioned normally. I also checked the booster vac hose underneath the air box and it looked normal. These checks were performed with the engine cold. Today I ran an errand and the brakes felt mormal the first few miles then I tried to turn into the Home Depot parking lot and barely could slow down enough to make the turn. I carefully drove home and pulled the air box and noticed that the vac hose to the booster was slightly compressed at the 90 degree bend but not totally colapsed. I then noticed that the vac hose was routed between the intercooler hose and the lower radiator hose, two sources of heat. I pulled the intercooler hose back a little and sure enough that part of the vac hose was completely flattened. The heat obviously softened the vac line enough to colapse but was fine when cool. This looked like the original 20 year old volvo hose. Installed some new vac hose and routed thru a cooler location and $5 later problem solved. This could be a serious problem since you start out with normal brakes then loose your brake booster a few minutes later. Might be hard to explain to the adjuster. Would recommend everyone change out the booster vac hose every 5 years or so, cheap insurance.
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