hello everyone.. this week i bought a 1974 maverick 4 door with 26,000 original miles locally... it runs like a dream and i love the sound of the engine! while i was moving it i noticed that there are a couple problems with the brakes. in order to stop the car you have to push the pedal down all the way to the floor.. even as soon as you put the car in gear if the brake isn't held completely down the car will move. the brake light on the dash is also lit.. since i am new to this car and have yet to pick up the service manual, does anyone have any suggestions? thanks guys
Ninjako The couple of problems with your brakes are related to the samething. Make sure you have brake fluid in the master cylinder. If you do then most likely your master cylinder is bad if its the original. The other things you could do is bleed the brakes, to see if that makes a difference. Check all the lines from master cylinder back to see if there are any leaks. Also if the Mav is that original, brake fluid absorbs moisture and makes things go bad and the fluid should be flushed.
thanks for the quick reply willie, it's really appreciated how would i check the level of brake fluid in the system? this car hasn't been driven for 8-10 years before i bought it so it is possible that i has bad seals/lost fluid in that time oh and one more thing, what type of brake fluid should i be using in this car?
Pop open the Master cylinder, if it's the original one the cap is held on by a 1/2 inch bolt. To flush the lines get a bleeder wrench (I highly recommend one of these), get yourself one of those one man brake bleeder kits (unless of course you have a helper), then hook it up to each wheel one at a time starting with the right rear wheel open the bleeder screw and after you top off the master cylinder (I doubt it's full already) start pumping the brake pedal you'll wanna keep doing this on each wheel until the fluid clears (brake fluid normally looks light tan in appearence if it's fresh). To speed up the process you could get an old cup with a piece of vacumn hose (I prefer the clear plastic ones so you can see the fluid) and place it on the left rear wheel and open that bleeder valve as well, just keep adding fluid and pumping the brake pedal until you get clean fluid (do the same for the front wheels), once the flushing is done take that bleeder kit and bleed each wheel one at a time the bleeding pattern I used was. Right Rear, Left Rear, Right Front, Left Front. If the problem persists you'll need to change the master cylinder it's quite possible it could be shot and if it's rusty i'd trash it anyway because the rust will only contaminate the new brake fluid (that was the case in my situation).. The type of brake fluid to use is DOT 3, I know you've probably seen that DOT 5 Silicone Brake Fluid and how good it claims to be, bottomline on that while it doesn't absorb moisture like DOT 3, and 4 do it would need waaaay to much work done to the brake system to use it, i've been tempted to use it myself but the Cons outweigh the Pro's IMO. Hope this helps
Craig I don't think there is anything special that you need to change on the brake system except to flush out all the old and get the new in. I don't remember all the pro's & con's, I have to find one of my old car mags to find out again.
The biggest Pro's to Silicone Brake Fluid are of course it's high boiling point, and it's resistance to moisture so it supposedly lasts alot longer without the need for flushing as often but the workload and expense involved not to mention that the fluid itself is like 10 times more expensive then DOT 3 or 4 are the biggest Cons of all.
EVERYTHING in my braking system is going to be brand new....lines, master cylinder, etc...all brand new....so I might look into the silicone solution.
i put dot 5 brake fluid in my show harleys. it is noncorroding. dot 3 will take paint off. i have never had to change brake fluid in a car that has been driven on a regular basis...frank...
