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.

 

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

 

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!