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Brake Failure light, Master Cylinder, leaky caliper? 200 1989

Hello again,

This will definitely be a convoluted question, so bear with me. The car is an 89 244.

I did a bunch of brake work on it in fall of 2007 after a seized caliper (replaced both front calipers & rotors, some lines). As far as I know, things have been working well since then, but my wife is driving it most of the time, so I'm not sure of this. Yesterday she let me know that the Brake Failure light was on. I went and traded cars with her, saw the light, checked the reservoir - front compartment was empty, and the back compartment is pretty dark. I went ahead & filled it back up, and the light went away for the most part (it still shows up if i really push the pedal to the floor). The pedal is definitely soft and mushy now, but I have no idea if the pedal was soft or not before this occurred.

I drove it to work and back, parked in the garage, took off the front wheels and hit the brakes a lot, but can't see any evidence of leaks on the ground. The only place that even seems a LITTLE like a possibility is the left front caliper, which is dark all along the bottom and looks like it left some darkness on the inside of that rim (pretty hard to tell where it might be leaking), but I can't see any active dripping. The reservoir seems to have stayed at the same level since I refilled it, too. As far as I can tell, the octopus is dry, thank god. I have some time this weekend, and I'm wondering what I should do:

-replace the possibly leaky caliper?
-replace the M.C. while I'm at it? I don't know if it's definitely bad, but as far as I know it's original.

I will definitely be bleeding the system regardless. I was wondering if you all might know of any other ways I can test for leaks, or have any ideas on what else could be wrong... I'm not looking forward to wrestling with those lines, but at least I know they DID come off a few years ago. Thanks in advance...






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New Brake Failure light, Master Cylinder, leaky caliper? [200][1989]
posted by  sonoflee  on Fri Mar 6 04:18 CST 2009 >


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