brake pedal soft

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Old May 3rd, 2010, 11:43 AM
  #1  
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brake pedal soft

My 71 cutlass supreme has been seeing quite a bit of use now that spring is in full swing. Yesterday the brake pedal felt soft so when I got home I opened the master cyl. the front resevior was empty so I have a leak somewhere in the system. Although I havent taken the wheels off I got under the car to see if I could find any obvios leaks. every thing I could see was dry.

My question is the what wheels is the front resevior related to? Is this a diagonal system so is it one front and an opposite rear? I am trying to narrow my search options

The car has 4 wheel drum brakes if it matters

Thanks
Kevin R
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Old May 3rd, 2010, 11:57 AM
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Originally Posted by KevinBN7
My 71 cutlass supreme has been seeing quite a bit of use now that spring is in full swing. Yesterday the brake pedal felt soft so when I got home I opened the master cyl. the front resevior was empty so I have a leak somewhere in the system. Although I havent taken the wheels off I got under the car to see if I could find any obvios leaks. every thing I could see was dry.

My question is the what wheels is the front resevior related to? Is this a diagonal system so is it one front and an opposite rear? I am trying to narrow my search options

The car has 4 wheel drum brakes if it matters

Thanks
Kevin R
It is not a diagonal system and the front reservoir should feed the front brakes.
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Old May 3rd, 2010, 12:59 PM
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Joe thank you for the quick response. The front drums are dry however the bottom half of the booster ( under the master) is covered with fluid. I assume this means a new master and bleed brakes.

KR
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Old May 4th, 2010, 05:26 AM
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You might want to remove the front drums just to make sure the slave cylinders aren't leaking fluid. If your slave cylinders are relatively clean on the front then I would go ahead and replace your MC and bleed the brakes.

BTW, do you have power brakes? If so you might consider replacing your vacuum booster at the same time. I just did a similar job on my 71 98 and it wasn't much more expensive or time consuming to replace the vacuum booster with the MC. Good luck!
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