Brakes on 1999 Olds Silhouette

[ManglerYJ]

We just picked up a 1999 Silhouette that has a soft pedal. It was a harrowing trip home from WV down the mountain in it and thankfully the weather was great, because it would have been towed home if not.

The pedal is pretty soft and at times, it felt as though there were no brakes at all. When it would finally stop, there would be an audible "clunk" when starting again and you could see the rear of the van sort of lunge when the brakes were released.

So I started tearing into it to see what was up. The rear shoes look great - in fact I put a new shoe up to it and the thickness was near identical. The drums were rusty on the exterior, but were not gouged out or anything, but since there were some brand new in the box ones included with the van, I threw new ones in place. Aside from being dusty, there was nothing else out of the ordinary so I didn't replace the shoes. When I had each rear tire in the air, I spun the tire and had my 5 year old son push the pedal to see if it would stop. The passenger side never did, but the driver's side stopped as normal.

I'm suspecting either air in the line, or a seized up wheel cylinder. I don't have a one-man brake bleeder to check and my son just isn't old enough to understand "pump and hold", so I'll have to wait to bleed them until my wife is home.

Any other suggestions for stuff to check for?

 

[Skinny]

I personally would get a cheap vacuum bleeder and run all new fluid through the entire thing just to make sure you have quality fluid with no air. This of course after inspecting for proper operation of calipers and wheel cylinders. Anything stuck or leaking needs to be replaced. A frozen caliper will give you a spongy pedal with very little stopping power. I would also make the proper rear brake shoe adjustments. Shoes too far away from the drum will give you a low pedal and tend to cause lockup easily.

If that doesn't solve it I would look at my flex lines to see if they need to be changed. Old ones tend to blow up and expand from age. If that doesn't solve it which at this point it should, you may have a failing master cylinder. Based on probability and age, I would look at solving the above first before getting this far into it.