A chronology (sorry for the length):

Last August, on a 90+ degree day, I return to my little town from a trip to the mall (20 minutes of 50 MPH each way) in my '86 240 wagon. I come to a stop sign, car stops fine. Turn right, proceed maybe 200 yards, attempt to stop so I might turn left into the grocery store. Suddenly I have very little pedal, but the car reluctantly stops. There's no other car nearby so I accelerate a bit to experiment, then brake again... virtually no pedal at all this time. I limp home at 5 mph, stopping with the parking brake. The car sits in my driveway, I do nothing to it, and an hour later it's fine -- full pedal, stops great. I figure some fluid boiled but has recondensed. I bounce the idea off a trusted friend, a lifelong mechaninc who is skeptical of my diagnosis. He suggests something strange could be happening with the MC, which makes no sense to me, so I do nothing. The problem doesn't recur for many months and I forget about it.

This spring, I replace all 4 rotors and all pads. RF caliper seems to be heating up, smelling a bit on even short trips but not pulling or locking up. I let it ride a few days and it stops smelling, so I figure some kink has worked itself out.

Several weeks later, on another very hot day, I go to the same mall. When I'm almost there I notice the car is pulling to the right and I smell brake. I stop once and it stops fine, stop again and the pedal is gone. Now I'm convinced my boiling fluid diagnosis was right. I limp to the store using the parking brake again, and kill an hour and a half. Magically, the pedal restores itself and I drive home without another event.

I order a new caliper, but when it arrives I'm wrapped up in preparation for a fishing camp I go to with my FIL, who lives in Detroit (I'm just west of Cleveland). I don't have time to change it, but I bring it with me on the 3-hour drive to Detroit, just in case. I get all the way there without incident. A week later, however, it's another really hot day and time for me to go home... in rush hour. I manage to get from the rather posh suburb where FIL lives into the heart of old Detroit (lovely area, Eight Mile is) when I smell brake, the car starts pulling and the brakes fail on the freeway. I manage to veer off an exit into Eminem's old stomping grounds. Evening's coming on, I've got no brakes, 200 miles from home, minimal tools and no helper. I find an elderly mechanic sitting (with his whole family, it seems) in a shell station garage with nothing to do. Despite a considerable language barrier we come to the understanding that he will change calipers for me and bleed the brakes for $75 cash. I bite.

He's a nice guy. He repairs cars with a collection of vise grips, broken screwdrivers, taiwanese sockets and garden pruners, but he works carefully and deliberately. He changes the calipers, I do the pedal-pushing part of the bleeding. The brakes still feel spongey and I tell him so. He insists that they will get better in a few days (they don't), tries them himself, suggests that the booster is bad (I don't think so), it's getting dark, I'm tired and the language barrier is making me more tired. I pay the nice man and go home.

So today I got around to re-bleeding that one caliper. I got several bubbles out of all 3 bleeders, and the pedal stiffened considerably. However (I do actually have a question) the Brake Failure light, which just came on today, remains on even after the more thorough bleeding. Also, in the course of bleeding, I noticed that there is an audible click that occurs and can be felt in the pedal when it is pressed hard. I haven't been able to narrow down where it's coming from. Since I'm now a bit skittish about these brakes, despite the fact that they seem to be working, can anyone enlighten be about the idiot light or the click?

Thanks so much for your patience.