Brakes...or lack thereof

[Anth73]

Well the brakes on my GTV aren't confidence inspiring at the moment. The pedal feels like it has a lot of travel and I'm pushing very hard to get any braking power. In fact I tried an emergency stop from 50kph and couldn't lock the brakes. The "foot on the pedal when you start the car" test leaves a firm feeling rather than the usual slight drop I'm accustomerd to. I can also here a wheezing sound when I pump the pedal.

Initially I though my vacuum hose was split as it looked rather tattered, so I replaced it with some new vacuum hose but it made no difference. There's plenty of fluid in the brake reservour. I should mention I'm running Volve front brakes too.

Could my master cyclinder by stuffed?

[bonno]

My guess  is that you have a failing brake booster, rather than a master cylinder.

[GTVeloce]

Given the history of your car, it may be running track pads too? They won't inspire any confidence until warmed up. But my first thought is your booster is having issues. Probably should do fluid flush, check the condition (and type) of pads and check the rear brakes are set correctly first off. Then there are a few tests you can do to test the booster (such as recommended by sportiva).

Are you running the standard rear bias adjuster? If so, I wonder how well that works with the volvo brakes?

[Mick A]

I used to have the Volvo 240 front callipers on my Alfetta, and with standard everything else, the pedal had a fair amount of travel, but was never hard to press or unable to lock up the fronts, I'm jumping on the "your boosters farked mate" bandwagon.

ps.. if anyone wants some callipers....

[carlo rossi]

brakes you say?
what are they?nothing but a hidderence \
I think they are all correct and if you have hard pads so much worse
and then there is the distributor box can be clogged ( under passger side rear)

[Anth73]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys!

I tried sportiva 30sec run test and there certainly was a "woosh" when I pulled the vacumm hose from the inlet manifold (the brake booster end is much harder to get off and I figured it won't make a difference).

I also noticed that if I turn the engine off witt my foot on the brake pedal it rises.

Expect a call Mick...

[sudsy]

FWIW.. I found that my Alfetta brakes went to Xanadu if the rear calipers got sticky  to some degree or another...

This usually happens (still) after a hot run...

In this case, the brakes went very rubbery and not very effective at all..
Leaving the car rest overnight with handbrake off tends to restore braking efficiency..

Take away from this is ....sticky rear calipers...