Hey guys. New to the forums here. Anyhow I have a 1984 Buick Regal Limited that has a swapped in 350 out of a 77 olds. That seemed to have gone fine but now I have brake problems. Last summer I was driving it and the brakes suddenly went very soft on a brake and went nearly if not all the way to the floor. Now I have drove it to where it is parked and I fired it up a couple times over winter and drove it around the yard etc and tried the brakes. Still the same thing. Now I have had all 4 brakes bled several times and there is no air in the line. I thought it was the front pass caliper and i replaced that earlier cause it was sticking on and pulling to the right and got very warm. So I am wondering if it is the brake booster or the master cylinder. What do you guys think? I want this baby on the road this year again.

Under hood:


http://s15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...uff/Cars/84%20 Regal/ links to my collection of photos. The car in question is the BLACK one. At the time the Brown one was mine to but I bought it as a parts car but it was in better shape actually. Sold it to a friend that is still driving it today.

 

if the pedal goes to the floor, and you have already bled ALL the lines, then i would replace the master cylinder. and be sure to bench bleed the m/c BEFORE you install it. the new one should have instructions on how to do that.





were the brake lines disconnected during the swap?


ps, if the booster was bad, the pedal would be hard to press (you would basically have manual brakes)

 

Well i think it was a combo problem. I replaced the master cylinder, bench bled it with this lovely kit that came with it! got it all installed and bubble free, still nothing. So I inspected around a bit more and discovered that the front caliper on the drivers side wasnt working. and so i replaced that one for 25 bucks new. i had replaced the passenger last summer. so between replacing the master cylinder and the last remaining front caliper, i have semi good brakes now. The drivers side had the bleed screw broken off so that is why i replaced it. also I do not know how 2 garages "bled my brakes" if the screw was broken off...

 

well, i guess that tells you to stay away from those garages.


but glad to hear it working now. but what the semi-good? Still not quite right?

 

well it is getting better. did some cruising tonight and a nice big burnout and its at about 1/2 now. I was working on 1/2 to 1/4 pedal left. I think the back needs bled some more. Buddy that helped me would only do one pedal worth of bleeding for the brakes, so ya. And today he said we should have done more and he got mad at me when i said that he said one was good enough. blah...

so I don't know if i needed to replace the master cylinder but it was 55 bucks so its not a biggie. I have owned this car twice. back in about 99-00 I had the pedal actually kick me back once. The booster had gone. Wow was that a project to do!!

Anyhow that's it for brakes I hope. Next project is to fix or find new seats for the front 40/60 split. Might go 40/40 and put in a console if I can find one. The drivers is the worst at the moment. The back is broke slightly and leans back too far. kinda hurts my back after awhile. I have dual exhaust and "raptor' mufflers on it. Makes it nice and rumbly. Might ditch the 7 blade fan it has and put an electric in there. I am getting too much noise from under the hood. Also gonna do a tune up involving a can or 2 of carb cleaner, new plugs, new wires. Distributer cap looks newish so I am debating on changing that out.

I also bought a Hanes book for it. I bought the Olds book because it is very similar to the Buick and I have an olds motor in it.

I want it to eventually look like this:


Edited by: The_Stuff

 

you may consider those vacuum pump, 1 man bleeder kits. thay are about $30. but it sounds like you will have full pedal once the air is gone.

 

okay, after a few days driving it again it appears i just need to bleed the back brakes a bit more.

on a side note, i noted when doing some carb cleaning that the 4bbl flaps are not moving when i move the pedal. should the move open and closed with pedal movement?

 

i'm not too familiar with the carb'd cars, but i want to say that they run off eng vacuum, so they require a higher engine load to open the last 2 barrels.

 

ah... i see i see... that would explain it. I will mess with it some more tomorrow if it is nice out...