Joel Geerling

I recently found & bought the car I've wanted since I was 12: a 91 Formula. It has been a fixer-upper, particularly because it was in a hailstorm (the reason I could afford it). The one problem I haven't pinned down yet is that it pulls left (even after new tires, alignment) and REALLY pulls left when braking at stoplights on bumpy asphalt.

When I took the front wheels off to compare caliper action, pad wear, etc., I noticed no uneven pad wear (not on either lt/rt, nor any noticeable difference between the two). The caliper pistons don't stick and both seem to grab their rotors equally well. Nothing wrong with the rotors either... the hoses on both sides looked fine, externally.

I noticed some messages here re. a bad hose on the side opposite to the pull (makes sense), so I looked more closely at them. The one on the right seems to twist a little when the pedal is down (at the upward /^\ loop the hose makes), while the left side doesn't. Does this sound indicative of a deteriorating hose or is it normal?

I don't want to change the hose unless it's the likely culprit b/c I have bad luck with bleeding brakes and putting them back together (I've sheared off two bleeder nuts and broke a piston seal on my previous cars, resulting in time and $$ for new calipers!).

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

JoelG

91 Formula, red
Edelbrock open element air
(no other mods yet - too much t/$ already into getting it back to normal from misc. damage & abuse!)

RB83L69

Change the hoses. They are notorious for failing by getting blocked. They're cheap, alot cheaper than hospital bills, which IMHO makes them an extremely good deal. They're definitely cheaper than somebody else's hospital bills when you run into them because your brakes were so screwed up you couldn't stop.

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"So many Mustangs, so little time..."
ICON Motorsports

PF Flyer

Get some 'Speed Bleeders' and it'll be easy to bleed the system.
I installed GT Rotors and rebuilt the calipers up front. I've got the 'Bleeders' to simplify the task at the track.
Now I need to find a quality (complete) set of S.S. braided flex lines for it.

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A black '90 Pontiac Formula with

• 305 ci TPI V8
• 5 spd
• WS6 suspension
• 140 mph speedo
• 10 disc CD changer
• T-tops
• GTRotors (front)
• Spohn SFCs & adj Panhard Rod
• Gabriel Gas Shocks (rear)
• BMR STB
• SLP 'Cat-Back' exhaust, with the 2-O-T-L
• SLP 'FlowBooster'
• the 'Wonderbar'

Joel Geerling

Thanks for the advice, I guess I'll go ahead and change those hoses (may as well do both).

PF, thanks for the advice on the Speed Bleeder - I'll check into that. Does that allow you to do the bleeding w/o needing a helper?

Thx again...

94-6spd

My 83 did the same thing and I changed the calipers and the hoses at the same time. WOW! What a difference it makes to have the parts working right.

Joel Geerling

Alright, I replaced both front hoses and bled the lines, BUT the car drives and brakes same as before!

Car pulls left while moving (no brakes) and pulls left a little harder when braking - more specifically, when letting off the brakes (yet the hoses are both brand-new, the pads-almost new-measure out all evenly worn, and the calipers both look to be funcitioning normally, the same...). I have new tires w/equal pressure, I just had it aligned... no past damage to the frame or anything.

Any more ideas??

Thanks,
JoelG

Apeiron

Crud in the brake lines.

poorboy8

Anymore advice here? Sounds like a similar problem I've been having!

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j.wolfe
_ ____ _
91 GTA L98 MSD K&N 194,000
Best time: 14.389@95.49 (VMP) Done with 193,000 miles and no engine work what so ever.
"...Deception..." Brandon Sloan * ...wounds heal and chics dig scars...

Joel Geerling

I replaced both brake hoses, but the old ones were fine... turns out, I went ahead and got another alignment and no more pull! The first shop must have ripped me off and not actually given me an alignment...

If you suspect your brake lines are a problem, maybe take them off and run a wire or something down the middle to see if they're crudded up or not, so, if they're fine, like mine were, you don't blow $40 on new ones... just my $.02... good luck.

88TPI406GTA

This is not really an issue of "crud" blocking the brake line...if we are talking the rubber line, of course.

The deal is that the rubber lines, when they get old, will actually start to collapse on the inside and most of the time, won't release the pressure right away. That is why you should replace the brake hoses after 5-6 years.

As for those of you who say, "But I saw a pair of 15 year old rubber brake hoses on a G-Body or a pickup truck, and THEY worked fine" Let me gently remind you that we have struts and the brake hoses move/flex a lot more in strut applications that simple older shock configurations. The rubber gets hard and brittle after 5-6 years and can crack/collapse on the inside. Don't use a steel brush/wire on a rubber brake line!

Also, any pulling while braking only means something in the braking system isn't functioning (obviously). If the rubber hoses are new, the odds are that you have a sticky caliper on that side...Also check the wheel bearings too for play.

Forget the terror campaign, I am working on the campaign against bad info

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Adam
-88 GTA with a 406 TPI

[This message has been edited by 88TPI406GTA (edited November 21, 2001).]

Joel Geerling

I'm sorry - I didn't mean to scrape around with wire or anything... yeah, that could be bad.

But, although I thought the brakes might have been involved at first, the new alignment (or should I say the only alignment) seems to have fixed the pull - with and without braking...

You'd probably know more than me about recommended intervals for changing brake hoses, but I cut both my old ones in cross sections and down the middles and they were smooth and fine (no cracked or weakened areas) throughout... I still think I wasted $40 and a couple hours replacing them...

jmd

iTrader: (4)

LOL...

Let me gently remind you...

G-bodies have the same front calipers, same rotors, same wheel bearings, same lower control arms (front and rear) as third gens.

The spindles introduced in 1977 on the redesigned A-body for the '78 model year are... save for minor bearing changes, and of course the upper balljoint changed out for a modified strut, the SAME spindle as a third gen.

To boot, most any third gen F has stronger front springs than a 78-88 A/G so in fact, the g-body suspension, and thus brake hose, would move more than an f.

While I'm at it, the substitution of the strut design is a cost cutting, simpler design, not the other way around. Third Gens do wonderful things for what they came with.

Join the club, little soldier. Just let the General lead the way.

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jmd
1986 SS with...
86LB9 TPI atop the original L69, Hooker emissions legal PN 2050 headers, stock L69 cat (yes, a real one), hydraulic clutch T5, Energizer 272 cam, chargedair.com fan, Global West CNR-88-C negative roll kit, 89 Iroc front springs, CC635 Moog rear springs and a whole bunch of other fun stuff

TomP

In the interests of safety, it's not a wasted $40. Did you flush out your old brake fluid from the system after the change? Make sure your bleeder screws all have the rubber caps on 'em; that'll prevent them from rusting shut over time.

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-Tom P (Hot rodded 1986 Firebird 2.8l)