gliot1

Over the last year I had an ongoing brake problem. I would intermittently get a soft brake pedal. If I immediately hit the pedal again the brakes were fine. After rebuilds of the calipers and numerous bleedings, I decided to rebuild the master cylinder (It was cheaper to replace, but I wanted to keep the original casting). The rebuild was fairly easy; all work under an hour. I bled the system a number of times. SUCCESS!!!! The brakes are firmer than ever, with nos soft pedal, ever! The only addtional info is bleed the brakes per the Chevy manual. Normally you would bleed longest line to shortest, but on Corvette only (per the manual) you bleed LR,RR,LF,RF. Previosuly we were bleeding by the longest to shortest method and could not get a good pedal. When doing it properly it bled perfectly. thi is the happiest I've been on a fix in a long time. Iffy brakes are not fun to drive with! :mad :smash: :mad :smash: :mad :smash: :auto: :party:

NHvette

Yeah - mine were like that - and temperature dependent. Cool mornings
would give a pedal to the floor - barely stopping at the end of the driveway.
After a few stops - all was great. Warm days posed no problem.

I knew it was the MC - replaced with a cheap unit from Pep Boys - or someplace.
That POS was worse than the original - plus I needed to grind the pushrod a
bit to get it to fit into the MC correctly. They argued all kinds of things -
from bench bleeding to pressure bleeding. The $25 MC is still sitting on top
of my water heater. The original went back in. Now - I got smart and bought
the rebuild kit.

Like you - I will realize the vette braking power that I've been missing.

:seeya


[Modified by NHvette, 5:52 PM 8/6/2003]

Bnine

Where did you get the rebuild Kit? Mine is about due.

Buffalo Dude

Why would you go shortest to longest? That seems counter to how it's normally done. Is it just one of those quirks on owning a corvette? :confused:

Dalannex

You do that because the fluid lines go to the LR first, then there is a block that takes the fluid to the LR caliper, and to the RR. This is very close to the LR caliper. By doing LR, then RR the air is pushed out on it's way to the first stop along the line, which is the LR, then when that's done the only remaining air is downstream on the way to the RR, so you do that one next, pushing the rest of the air out. The front is a similar setup in that the lines run a kind of a loop from the master cylinder to one wheel, then to the other.

-Justin

gliot1

You can get them through the Corvette suppliers, or as I did, went to my local CarQuest and ordered it for $32.00. I bought a bench bleed kit for another $6. While I had the MC off, I repainted it as well. It was an easy rebuild. Put it in a vise, compress the piston and remove the secruing clip. Remove the front piston, apply compressed air through the rear hole to remove the rear piston. Clean the cylinder thouroughly with brake fluid and use crocus cloth to clean any scale or hardened fluid off the cylinder. Make sure everything is clean and flushed with fluid. Replace the seals on the rear piston. The kit provided an entire new front piston; replace it. Compress the pistons with a phillips and insert the securing ring. Bench bleed the cylinder and put it back on the car! Bleed the system. The whole removal and rebuild took about an hour max. :chevy :chevy :chevy

OHSIXX

gliot1: Thanks for the great info. :)