hi i have a 91 formula and latley when i hit the brakes it pulls to the left. wondering what could cause this?

 

Drum, or rear disks? If it's the front, change the flex line, and caliper. If it's rear drums check the wheel cylinder.

 

4 wheel disk brakes.. the rear calipers are fairly new, maybe 4k miles on them. the front may be the original 115k calipers though.. how do i know if my master cylinder needs to be replaced?

 

Not the master cyl... that affects both wheels equally.

More likely, it's the rubber hose on the right side, failed like they usually do.... they rust up on the inside, and eventually get like clogged arteries, and fluid can't get through. The defining symptoms are, if it pulls to the left, then gradually straightens out, and then when you take your foot off the brakes, it pulls to the right for an instant; and, if the right front wheel gets hot (from the caliper dragging).

Whatever you do, do the same thing to the other side. (hoses, calipers, whatever)

 

Flex lines at places like murrays, or Parts source are somewhere around 20$. Try that, hopefully it fixes the problem.

 

i highly doubt that its the hose

if it was the hose internally collapsed then the brake would be stuck all the time and would literally burn up the pads and rotor as you are driving

the problem is on the right side yes, it is either not getting fluid it needs, or the pads are shot, or the caliper is bad,
the last resort would be a restriction in the hose or in the line

another possibility is that the caliper is stuck/bound and not sliding on the slider bolts/guides and is getting staying too far outboard for some reason- check for this(with wheel removed)

for some reason or another it is not workin as well as the left side- the left obviously is working fine if it is pulling that direction


make sure no steering part is worn out

this can cause pulling too

 

Thats what I thought with mine. Here's every one telling me "Your left is working fine, change the right" I changed both sides, both flex lines, and bled them. Turns out it wasn't in the front at all, it was in the back left, the wheel cylinder went, and was locking up when ever I was on gravel, and wet asphalt.
So here's what you can try, specvgini. Get a friend to drive with you to a gravel type driveway, or parking lot. Have him stand on the right side, go about 30km/h and slam on the brakes. You should be able to find the culprit easily. It's how I found mine atleast...

 

JamesC

 

it's only when i hit the brakes. sometimes if i ease into the brake slowly it won't do it. but if i quickly hit the brakes it pulls to the left. aside from the brakes it drive straight all the time.

 

i had two 84s do the same ting both were hose problem .

 

This was exactly what happened to my car. When i taped the brakes it would pull hard to the left. I replaced both of my front brake lines, and sure enough it was a collapsed line. My friend has a 86 and had the same problem. I would be 99.9% sure that is the problem, and the cheapest one to say the least to fix.

 

i have the opposite problem, i pull to the right, and that wheel locks up way before the left, i have new earls ss lines with reman calipers, new hawk hps pads new master. i personally think that either i have air in the left side or the rotor may be glazed on that side

 

i bought the pads an rotors and i'm also going to instal my new shocks.. i removed and installed the rotor on the passenger side. how important is it to get new bearings? typically what should i replace when i do the rotors?

 

Bearings.

JamesC

 

i used the old ones, i'm on a very tight budget.

So i replaced the rotors and pads. the pulling is not as bad anymore, but still there. only slightly though. when i was doing the brakes i pressed the brake pedal with the caliper off and the piston did push out so i know that the passenger side caliper gets brake fluid. so it can't be a bad line, but i did notice that the passenger side caliper piston didn't move as much. as a conclusion i'm almost certain i need a new caliper. However, i'm broke, so until i can get 100 bucks for the pair i'm just gonna deal with this slight pull. i hardly drive the car now anyways.

Also one big problem i'm having is getting the car up on jack stands. the spots where you would normally jack the car up by are weak and can't hold the vehicles weight. where else can i put the jack stands?

 

The line can still be bad. Fluid goes through, but since the line collapses behind it (sort of acting as a check valve), the caliper can't release at once.

JamesC

 

Reman calipers are $10 each at o'reilly with a $20 core; hoses are like $13. Keep things in balance left and right. Whatever you do to one side, do the same thing to the other. Buy a couple quarts of brake fluid and flush the whole system out.

 

wow thats extremely cheap. i can't believe how cheap that is. i'm deffinatley going to buy a pair of those. thanks

You know whats weird, my car has rear disk brakes but the front calipers are the one piston calipers they use on cars with rear drums. When i went to autozone to get the pads the guy gave me the wrong ones. The system asks if your vehicle has rear disk or drum and that determines which frony pads you get. my guess is cars with rear disk have different front brakes. So basically the guy that owned the car before me must had done a rear disk convertion from drums. kinda threw me off when i went to get the pads, when i got home i was like **** these are totally different pads then what i need.

 

It works like this I think. Unless you have a 1LE ("Performance package"), the front calipers are single piston cast-iron, regardless of what's on the back. J65 is the RPO code for 4-wheel-disk I think. If you have 1LE, the fronts are different.

 

82-92's were equipped with the same (non-performance) single-piston Delco-Moraine iron calipers with 10.5" rotors on the front (rears had them too up though 88). Even 89-92, which had single-piston alum rear PBR's and 11.7" rotors were still equipped with the Delco-Moraines up front.

JamesC

 

For me, it was that the rotors were not tight. After a 100,000 miles there was a little play in the front wheels. The races and bearings were still good, so I just replaced the seal and re-packed everything with new grease and it was fine.
I did replace the flex lines while I was at it though.

 

i drove the car a little more today and it hasn't pulled to the left at all today so far.. i'll drive it more and see what it does. be nice if i don't have to replace the calipers right now.

 

Agreed. My 91 had the SAME EXACT PROBLEM. As many Firebirds do, and every time it's a colapsed brake line. It would pull, then let go, and it would occasionally burn the pads if I had to slam the brakes. For the price, can ya go wrong????

 

i drove it a few more times. seems to be good now. no more pulling. in my case it very well could had been the rotors and pads cause they looked super old. i wouldn't be surprised if they were the original rotors. the pads were completely gone aswell. car brakes much better now. in the future i will get some reman. calipers and the lines.