at lunch today... Pushed, heard this pppffffff sound from under the dash, engine idle went odd and the pedal turned rock hard.

It takes EFFORT to stop that car without power assist! OMG... I bet it is 80lbs of force.

As a safe guard, I am getting it towed home tonight. I have the parts, just need to install them.

197,750 miles and 22 years on the original booster.

Mine cracked about 2yrs ago.... never have gotten around to fixing it.
Will

I have no brakes...

car is home, getting ready to take it apart.

Those are the brakes.

Quit breaking your car, Andy.

I was able to stop with a bad booster, same as Will.

Another chapter in the book you're writing

It would stop.... it's just I didn't like the way it stopped in relationship to the insane traffic on the local LA Freeways!!! Just seemed like a SigAlert waiting to happen...

As bad as stopping it with a stalled engine?

yes. that bad. It's horrid. Even manual drums of the 50s had more guts than this does...

Wow the money tree hits again. I was lucky to have deep coffers when my whole car was taking a dump.

Knock on wood

I am just glad I have my own private corvette supply house out in my garage!

this is the story of a bolt... one lousy bastard of a bolt... that cannot be reach by any means that I have come to figure out. I am not even 100% sure of this bolts size...

so far, the score is bolt 77, me 0.

This bolt, well, nut actually, is the right nut, inside the car, that holds the brake booster to the car.

The last thing I did today before totally losing light, I removed the drivers seat, hoping that tomorrow night, I will be able to get in and see what the hell is going on up there.

ugh...

Removing the driver's seat is about the only way to get up in there. I used a long extension with a swivel on the end and a short socket. I believe it's 13 mm but might be 14 mm. I've done the job twice now on my car. Second time was much faster.

I agree it is supposed to be a 13mm... but do we know exactly for sure what they picked up that day out of the bolt bin?

Only one way to find out. Now get to work!

I am still at work, damn it...

Not to be cute, what's the FSM say to do?

I think it says "remove bolts, remove booster, reverse procedure for install"

that about sums it up...

they neglect to tell us how nearly impossible it is to get the new booster into the fire wall... or how the frame support blocks access... or how the brake pedal bracket gets in the way...

ugh.

Tell us how the bracket looks when you remove it

they've been known to fail

the brake pedal bracket? I don't know how they would. Gas, for sure.

I am not removing the brake pedal bracket at all. It's a big chunk of steel up under the dash... the problem is that it springs open a touch, blocking the screw holes... and everything is sooo tight in there. I am debating making the holes in the firewall a touch bigger to remove some of the precision from the equation.

the sonofabitch is in...

Trick... drill out the holes in the firewall. Gives more wiggle room to get the booster in place.

The master needs to be bench bled... will do that tomorrow or thursday night.

This project is finally on the downswing, but what a mother...

No drilling was required on the 89, the booster goes in and out without a problem. Is the ASR in the way on the LT series?

Are you replacing the master as well?

On my car I was able to pull the master back without removing it and replace the booster. Not sure if that's possible on the LT cars.

the ASR isn't the problem... the chassis support bar that runs from the hood latch to the frame is a pain.

I am doing the master at the same time.

I have never compared them side by side as far as the support bar, but mine never got in the way.

you have to realize that the C4 was a VERY hand built car. As such, there are a ton of variances that won't appear in say, an Accord...

Andy Bolig from Auto Enthusiast told me that he has seen measurable differences in things like, distance from firewall to distributor...

What is one persons problem may not be another persons problem...

It's been a while since my last update...

This booster has been the biggest bitch of a job! I can't believe how difficult it was.

It is in, brakes are bled, but I can't start the car because the battery is done! Scratch one Red Top!

I can't totally blame the poor thing... it was killed by the brake lights being on. I thought I had jimmied the brake pedal up (the lights were off) but at some point, the lights came back on and that was that... totally fried it.

I will exchange it tonight. I am also going to check into getting the charger for the optima battery... If all goes well, the car will be back on the road tomorrow...

andy ,here is a little tip I do when the batteries in my golf arts go totally flat. I get a set of jumpers and hook another battery to it same pole to same pole. then just come back in an hour . you will have enough voltage to finish charging with a bat charger. I would try this before getting another battery . I cant tell you how many times they come back just fine. if you want to speed the process you can hook the charger to the battery you have connected to the dead one .having 25 golf carts at work I have become somewhat of an expert on them . 6 batteries per cart it can drive one bonkers .hehe

Good point Brad!

I just don't have a second battery to do this with!

The upside is that I think I still have a good warranty - Optima's have a 3 year exchange. And I think I am near that point...

I am a moron at times...

I think my problem is with the charger! I would expect a charger, plugged in at 20 to 40 amps, would at least light up the dome lights... IT DIDN'T!

Time to test with my old stand by charger.

Another thought, along the lines of your's, Brad, would be to put the battery on a slow charge, like 2 amps for 10-12 hours.

This weekend I retrieved my sons dead battery from his truck. Dead as a door nail. I gave it a couple of blasts with the Quick Start option. Kind of like a resuscitating jolt. Oddly it worked and then I charged the battery for about 10 hours. I put it in the truck and cranked it over several times without issue. Truck didn't start but it turned over multiple times without issue.

I have put my old 10 amp charger on it... there is life.

Now, let it sit 3+ hours and check it tonight.

I disconnected the battery from the car, and installed these ACDelco adaptors to the side terminals. They make charging fun.

Quote:

Tommy: Can you stop by tonight and help me with something?

Bill: Can't, I have a charging party at Andy's house tonight. Those side terminal adaptors are just so much fun I can't pass it up.

Quote:

Collectively speaking, we need lives.


And I may still need a battery... it charged all night... but I didn't have time this morning to test. Will do that tonight.

It's either fully charged or dead as a door nail...

I forgot how much action there is over here

It's ALIVE!!!!

The battery took a charge! After some fiddling - it's been dead for 2+ weeks, it started up nicely.

And the brakes work.

That's great Andy.

Fantastic!