Sacrebleu brake woes. (Whoa woes)
Sacrebleu has been getting caught up on maintenance, both with encouragement from friends, and from my own sense of what’s needful. Way-y back in the mists of the earliest posts, there was a mention of her pulling under hard braking. That, along with wanting to get all the fluids changed out led me to taking it to the shop to have a brake flush done. The shop got me in with little trouble, and the tech began the process. He was nice enough to let me stand with him when he opened the master cylinder, and at first glance, it didn’t look TOO bad. I went back the waiting room, before long, I was back in the shop, under Sacrebleu, with the tech showing me bad news. *sigh*. I suppose I’m still waiting for the first time a tech brings me out to the car to show me GOOD news. *eyeroll* Sacrebleu’s passenger rear wheel cylinder has a broken bleeder screw. There’s no bleeding it. I suggested replacing the bleeder screw, but the tech nixed that idea. Probably gave him the willies that happen with potential broken fasteners, and he was already looking at it broken. He countered with a suggestion to replace the wheel cylinders, to which I was unimpressed. A quick poll of the shop sided with the tech, that wheel cylinder replacement was the solution. I was reluctant, and even grudging to accept the consensus, but hey, that’s how these guys make a living, in effect, it’s what I’m paying them for. You’d follow a lawyer’s advice, right? Same thing applies.
The brake flush is (sorta) completed, noting that it wasn’t possible to fully bleed it, and that the tech actually had to ream out the bleeders to get them to flow. I guess the brake fluid was actually pretty cruddy, so it was a good thing to get what was in there out, even to a limited degree. I paid for the service, and drove Sacrebleu home. That night, I ordered wheel cylinders for Sacrebleu, and returned the following week to the shop. Surprise! They couldn’t work me in right away, to my frustration, but the tech managed to slip me in between big jobs. Both wheel cylinders were replaced, the system was re-bled, and the brakes are in good condition. The tech did note that the front calipers looked new, so the bleeder screws up front were no problem at all. Sacrebleu now has new hydraulic-mechanical actuators (wheel cylinders) at the back, and newer ones (calipers) up front. I feel pretty good about the brake system’s condition now. I’ll probably bleed the brakes again in the spring, just to make sure.
