So I'm probably going to sound stupid asking this, but just recently I was drivin regularly, not fast or anything, and like usual I was approaching a red light. I go to stop just like normal. Hit my brakes and nothin! Well, almost nothin, it was slowin down a little but barely. I drive an 89 GXL w/ 4 piston calipers. Its weird cause I have pressure, almost too much. I slam the brakes which only moves the pedal like an inch and after about a second or two, it slowly creeps down about another inch. So it only goes down like 1/3 of the way (sometimes, it sortof works better at times) I bled the brakes and nothin, is it my master cylinder? I don't have a garage or alot of tools, what can I do to fix this myself?

 

Also, I pulled my ABS fuse, and in no way can I ever get close to locking up the brakes, they always suck ***, it just varies on the suckiness...

 

Sounds like a bad master...(Suckiness is NOT in "teh" Dictionary!..)

 

Sounds like the brake booster isn't working right for ????reason. Check it out to see if it's holding vacuum or not. Just a guess, what with a hard pedal but not much braking power. Much like if you drive the car down a hill, shut the engine off while coasting, then pump the brakes several times. At first you'll have good brakes, but the more you pump the brakes with no engine running, the harder the pedal becomes after four or five pumps of the pedal. Brake booster uses engine vacuum. Vacuum is held in the brake booster by a check valve so you'll have brakes even if the engine dies while your driving.

REally just a wild *** guess. Could be several things.

 

I am having this exact same problem. How would I go about troubleshooting this?

 

If the pedal is slowly going down then it might be the master is on its last legs. But IIRC the booster is adjustable....I think thats what the Chiltons said.... I would check the FSM

 

Bleed your brakes first, throughly. Hell, flush and then bleed.

Then try them when the car is on. If they feel like mush, turn the car off. If the brakes still feel like mush after a lot of pumping, it's probably the master. If the brakes get a lot stiffer after some pumping, the component that needs replacing is either the booster or the check valve.

 

Same thing happened to me a few weeks ago, turned out the brake fluid was level was like 1/4th hehe, damn leaky o ring.

 

Wow, I forgot about this thread. Turns out it was a clogged hose near the master cylinder. So I wasn't getting any pressure in the lines. I mean I barely had any brakes for a while.