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I am hoping someone can give me a quick answer to this..... My son and I both have older Chevy pickups. His is a 1994 C1500 W/T and mine is a 1995 C1500 W/T..... A few years ago, his truck had a brake line leak due to rust. The failure happened and he got the truck stopped and asked me about it. I told him that the truck had a dual reservoir so he would not lose all his brakes if a line broke/failed...... He had his truck repaired with no more thought to this.
Last week, I was using my truck to pull my light boat trailer. After fishing, I backed the trailer into the water to retrieve my boat, and after positioning the boat, I got back into the cab to prepare to pull the boat/trailer out of the water. When I put my foot on the brake pedal to pull the shifter to drive, the pedal was extremely soft and went to the floor illuminiating the brake light on the dash. I had the presence of mind to pull the boat out, and up the ramp, to a nearly empty parking lot where I managed to get the truck stopped.... I have no idea how. There was a puddle of brake fluid on the driver's side near the front. I depressed the pedal one more time and realized I had zero brakes.
There is a difference between my son's '94 reservoir and my '95 reservoir...... Am I missing something here? Did Chevy change the design and ability to get a truck stopped if one line failed? If I tried to drive my '95 and depressed the brakes, would I still have some brakes activate? I opened the master cylinder, and noticed it did have "two" compartments but one was very small and the other larger...... what is the purpose of the smaller compartment that holds brake fluid?
And yes, the truck was towed (AAA) to a repair facility where I will find out more tomorrow.... I looked at the brake schematic for my truck to determine where the brake line failed but came up with nothing... I know the general area is below the master cylinder and the box below it where the lines run in and the leave to go to the wheel cylinders... It is not the master nor this box.... It is a line down near the frame directly under the master cylinder..... but I cannot see where from the top or bottom and have no hoist so I will just let the repair guys work on it....
My question is simply one of safety.... If I was going down the road at 55 MPH and this line failed would I have had enough brakes to eventually pull over and get stopped safely?
You could use the transmission by shifting from D to 2 then to L to use the engine to slow you down along with the ebrake. I used to have a 99 Silverado and could slide underneath it to do work with having to jack it up.
Thanks..... I hesitate to use the emergency brake.... I bought the truck a few years ago and the previous owner never did and neither have I.... I was tempted to push it in the parking lot but I was not going very fast so I just put it in park to get stopped.... My question has to do with the master cylinder and why Chevy changed the design and does the very small reservoir adjacent to the main larger part of the reservoir serve a purpose? I also jacked it up to take a look.... but, decided to just have it done at a local mechanic shop that has worked on other Minnnesota chevy brake lines..... I am not optimistic..... It is a $2000 pickup so do you fix it or not? Will know more after it is worked on tomorrow..... thanks again
Duel reservoir, small side for rear drum brakes, large for front disk brakes. I believe in your case the front line broke, the front brakes do the majority of the braking, and in this case your rear brakes are poorly adjusted or just plain no good so no brakes.
Both master cylinders should be dual reservoir. They might look a little different but should function the same. In an emergency there should be no question about using the ebrake. if you are happy with the truck and it isn't in bad shape then yes it is worth fixing.
Hi.... rear drum brakes...... I would have to look but yes, probably.... aren't modern drum brakes self adjusting? and yes, I am older than dirt so I did adjust a lot of brakes in my early years..... I will have to take a look to see if there is a plug to remove to adjust the rear brakes..... and further, I did get into the parking lot (devoid of cars) and did press the brakes to the floor and that must be how it stopped.... at the time I was not paying much attention other than in semi panic mode...... This morning, I did take the cover off the master cylinder as I did the day they failed, and the larger reservoir was empty but the smaller reservoir did appear to be almost full.... I added some new brake fluid to the larger part so the mechanic tomorrow can have an asst. press on the brakes to see where the leak is, just to save some time, and as I filled up the larger reservoir you can tell that there is some kind of a path to the small reservoir as that also topped off ..... Will see what happens tomorrow... My main fear now is the bleeder valves... When I bought the truck the precious owner said they had replace the lines on one side.... wish they had done both.... and I can tell there is a new line running on the rear axle.... my only hope is that they can get all four bleeders open and perhaps removed and replaced with new one instead of replacing wheel cylinders.... not pricey, but the labor is.... and yes, the truck is decent... but my main concern is that it pulls my boat... you know... for fishing? and it has been good..... oh well... thanks again for the heads up.... anything else I should know about this?
Just thought I would post the final findings...... The young mechanic spent three hours replacing the front brake llines... the rears had been done by the previous owner.... The bleeders argued but he heated them a bit and the came free and were in decent shape after being cleaned up.... The parts cost $87 and then there were $20 or so in shop material fees and disposal fees too... He gets $100 per hour which I think is pretty standard these days. So overall, I could have done it myself I guess... but no hoist, getting old, and the towing was free through AAA.... He did a goot job.... I got right in on Monday morning and had the truck back early in the afternoon...... So today I was able to pull my boat and go fishing..... fishing still sucks....
This was last week.... my grandson caight this 38 inch muskie.... it was a hoot...... but is also one of the reasons why nothing else is biting..... when muskies feed, all other fish disappear....... When I get back to the boat launch site and people ask how fishing was, I just tell them I was not fishing; just going for a boat ride..... it usually gets a chuckle or two..... and PS.... the lake at sun up this morning was beautiful.....
June 21st, 2020, 5:44 AM
brake failures
