Started off to work today, backed out of driveway headed to the cornor hit the brakes and went to the floor on my '54 Ford. What realy sucks is after letting it set for 3 years my son and I went all over the brakes and replaced the front calibers and pads, along with some lines that look a little rusty, so now it's back in the garage waiting till the weekend to look for the cause of no brakes. This used to be my daily driver and is going to be again.
Happened to me in my daily driver a month or so ago. Pedel to the floor coming off the freeway on the exit ramp. Brake line rusted thru. Scary stuff.
That's where emergency brakes come in handy! I had the brakes go twice on a '70 El Camino I had. Fortunately it was a dual resevior master cylinder.
Should be a easy fix since there already overhauled. Most likely a line leak would be my guess provided you did a proper bleed and caliper OH.
did ya have to change your undies ? I think it happened to me once. What a rush .you'll get it , thank god nobody got hurt .
I had an old Dodge van that happened to. Bad master brake cylinder. It would work fine for a while, but then it would just suddenly drain itself and the brakes would be gone. Pour more fluid in and I'd have brakes again. Made for a few interesting trips to work until I took care of it.
in 1968 I lost brakes in Littleton NH. on the way home once in my 63 Olds 98 ragtop. I drove it home to Coventry Ct with just the hand brake. it didn't seem as stupid an idea then as it does now...
This routinely happens at the GM dealer I work at, the techs are in too much of a hurry when they replace brake components and don't pump the pedal up after. Good thing we get a good discount from the overhead door company.
I lost my brakes years ago and just missed broadsiding another car with a family in it. Scared the crap out of all of us. I'll never have another car with a single master cylinder and I now make it a habit to stab the brake pedal hard each timeget in one of my cars and before shifting out of neutral. Not fail safe, but if the brake system has a problem, it'd be great to have them fail before getting in motion.
I had that happen years ago during the maiden voyage with my '60 Plymouth Fury I had just finished. I was just breaking it in...had gone over two miles of start and stop with no problems. I was just going to the end of the road and was going to turn it around where the road T's at the bottom of a very large hill...when the brakes decided to go south. Ever try to stop an old Mopar with the drive-shaft mounted E-brake? Finally managed to slow it down and cranked hard, putting a 18' long Fury sideways to get it to stop! A couple weeks later, on it's way to the first show, I was pulling into a gas station when the new throttle return spring broke causing the car to rapidly accelerate. I fortunately had presence of mind to cut it off quick and didn't hit a pump - and the brakes were fully functioning! Good luck figuring out the problem.
Just went thru this on my dd pickup. At least it happened a block from home and while the weather is still decent. Like somebody else said, I'd never own a car with a single reservoir master.
had my brakes "disappear" on my 63' fairlane one night. stopped on the way home to buy a gallon of milk and ended up buying the front wall of the "HANDI-MART" after i drove through it!
Im sure going through the way didn't tickle in a good way, but at least you did get killed or kill someone else. Paintcan54 if you are not already a subscriber , come by the 52-56 Ford social group if you need any help while trying to figure this out. I had something similar happen in my '54 Customline when we tested the brakes. My problem turned out to be that we just needed to bleed the brakes some more. I have the power assist dual reservoir system with drums all around.
if that be the case, then why did my dual master cylinder vehicle lose all of its brakes when the rear brake line sprung a leak? Pedal went to the floor and there was no stopping power at all. Dual master cyl with drums all the way around.
the fluid is probably leaking out the back of the master slowly my mustang is doing this fill it up and its fine for a while i need to get off my .*** and replace it good thing no one got hurt and no metal was forceably customized
had an intermittent master cylinder internal leak on an O/T van - the seals would get hot from the exhaust a foot away and leak. I would check for line, caliper and wheel cylinder leaks and then replace the master.
I had my brakes "give up the ghost" on my old 67 Galaxie. I thought the master shit the bed, but it was actually one of the springs inside the drum fell apart! Sucked though ran right out into heavy casino traffic with my wife on the side of me screaming, :Were all gonna die: LMAO CHUCK
Yeah , My wife drove the Jeep right through the garage door just missing my coupe. My ex wife as it is !!! She was driving it like she was still on the BLVD....I'm now seeing all kindza maybes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did you make sure your pedal can bottom out the MC before it hits the floor. Dual MCs take about 2/3s of their travel before they make a mechanical connection internally.
My Dodge truck had a dual master as well, but I could see where it was leaking out the back. And when it emptied, I had nothing for brakes. It was around that time I realized the parking/emergency brake in an automatic does actually serve a purpose. Sadly mine had become a rusted glob quite some time ago.
I had a new wheel cylinder burst on the right rear of my '54 Buick, coating the inside of the drum and shoes with DOT3. With a single reservoir master, there were no front brakes, no rear brakes, and the E-brake was only good for the dry (driver's side) drum. A '54 Buick will NOT stop from 45mph on one drum, even slamming the manual trans down through the gears to 1st. -Brad
My son and I went all the way front to back replaced the calibers and pads, check all the lines no leaks at the time, rear was done just before I parked it 3 years ago. I have '80 merc. monarc front brake set up every thing from booster to spindles I have had this set up for about 17 years on it. I figure it's a rear wheel cyl. from setting so long, as we didn't pull a wheel to check then just looked and didn't see any wet spots on the outside of the tires and wheel. I started driving it again back in Sept. put about 1,500 miles on it till now.
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