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1969 Torino brake help needed

2K views 0 replies 1 participant last post by  Swales2019 
#1 ·
Hello all. New member here. Having a braking issue I just cannot figure out:

At a cruise event I noticed my brakes were getting spongy in the heat with the stop and go. I pressed hard, felt a thunk in the pedal and the brake light came on.

Pulled over, added some fluid and had braking still and everything felt fine, just light on. Was able to drive home a few hundred miles and didn't notice anything really all that different from before the light went on while driving a couple hundred miles to the cruise.

Looked up the issue in 1969 Ford Shop Manual and followed the process to reset the distribution block piston. Felt the piston pop back and the light went off.

Turned the car on and the brake pedal became an instant sponge and almost literally fell to floor with barely a touch, and came to a hard stop about 4-6 inches of travel toward the floor.

Figured I must have a bad master cylinder so ordered a reman unit. Bench bled it, bled the lines. Pedal pumped up nice and hard when engine was off. Turned the car on and the exact same thing - the brake pedal felt like absolutely no resistance and fell down on very light pressure until it stopped about 4-6 inches down from the resting pedal postioin. Brake pedal would not pump up and the brakes will only barely stop the car at an idling roll. No way they could stop the car under normal driving.

Seemed like I had a bit of back brakes, but almost no front brakes. Thought maybe the prop valve was bad so put on an aftermarket adjustable unit. Still the same.

Re-bled the master cylinder and the lines. Still the same.

Thought maybe the distribution block had a blockage or something from the piston moving, so disassembled, cleaned and rebuilt with the kit and directions from West Coast Cougars.

Bench bled the master cylinder again just in case. Reassembled. Brakes pumped up fine after 4 or 5 pedal strokes. Pedal was hard. Started the car up and bam, the pedal went soft with almost no resistance just like the last few times.

Only thing I noticed was that the master cylinder seemed to actuate very late during the stroke while bench bleeding.

At a complete loss of what the root cause is for this could be. Why brakes will pump up when the engine is off, but soft when the engine is on. Doesn't seem logical that 2 master cylinders would be bad, but maybe should try another unit?

Not able to check if the brakes are actually working when the engine is off, but again, they BARELY work at all when the engine is on.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
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