I just recently acquired an 85 T/A, that has been sitting for a couple years. My intention is to get it on the road an used it as a daily, my fiance will be using it sometimes so it's gotta be a safe as a 30 year old car is going to be.

I've taken it on one shakedown drive and aside from some bad strut mounts, the car actually runs and drives pretty well.

The one thing that has me a little worried is the brakes, strictly because I don't have much experience with 3rd gen (or GM in general) brakes. The car stops decently and doesn't pull, but the pedal feels a little soft and I cannot seem to get the wheels to lock-up. Even if I slam on the pedal, the brakes won't lock and the car takes awhile to stop.

It's currently colder than a Penguin's Coochie outside, so I haven't had the chance to get the car up in the air to properly inspect, but here's what I know:
-The car has factory rear discs
-The previous owner told me that the handbrake doesn't work - I haven't dared try it yet
-On a half-assed inspection the rotors and pads look decent, plenty of meat left and looks like good clean contact surface.
-Fluid in the m/c is at the full level and doesn't seem to be decreasing at all. It does look rather dark.

I am hoping to narrow down the issue so I can start ordering the parts I'll need to get this thing going, as soon as the weather breaks I want to get on it.

Firm, First off, congrats on the T/A!

First thing I would do, being that its 30 years old is to rebuild the calipers and get new pads. Its inexpensive and easy enough to do.

Then remove all the old fluid starting at the RR and pump all the fluid out while topping off the reservoir. Continue till fluid runs nice and clear. You will use about a quart and a half of NEW brake fluid during this process. Move to the LR, RF, then LF.

Then AFTER the above is complete, change ALL the rubber hoses on the brake lines and replace with Stainless Braided lines. That in itself will make a HUGE difference. The old rubber lines deteriorate from the inside out. They expand when you apply the brakes giving you the "not so good feeling when trying to lock them up."

Then do a quick re-bleed in the same order mentioned. You could change them out BEFORE the flush process, but then you will contaminate the new lines with OLD fluid.

Pretty straight forward. Check RockAuto or Summit for the lines and rebuild kits.

Then ENJOY!

Hey this is a great post. I may do this to mine, only I have the opposite problem. My pedal is a little hard.

If it's hard, you may have crap in your rear lines to the caliper. A member on here not too long ago had the VERY same thing......as in hard pedal. He purged/flushed and then was fine. I can't remember who it was....I got CRS...can't remember s@#$

Ok, I'll check that out when I get decent weather. I thought it might be the booster, but I wasn't sure, even started a thread about it last night. No hissing noise from it, and it looks like it's got good vacuum, could be the brake lines clogged. I'm sure it needs flushed, mine is a 92. Do you know a good/affordable caliper rebuild kit? I just checked Autozone.com and didn't see any.

Go to Rockauto. They have the AC Delco Caliper rebuild kits for all 4. Relatively cheap, under 15 bucks per caliper.

Sweet! Thx!

Thanks Bob, didn't realize that they sold caliper rebuild kits - probably a good way to get started.

Not finding it on Rockauto. I see brake repair kits, but that's just the seals. Is that all there is to a rebuild kit? Just new seals?

If you are getting soft brakes, you might want to look at rebuilding or replacing the master cylinder as well if your going to do all that hydraulic work. Also, make sure the caliper guide pin bushings are clean and lubed.

They are there. Just go to the brake caliper section and you will see Caliper Pistons listed.

$8-$15 @Rockauto

Buy the pistons and seals.

^^^^^^^X2

Ok, found them. Thx. It's on the back burner til spring (it's supposed to be -7f here tonight) but I'm gonna have to come back here when I'm ready and have somebody tell me which pistons and seals to get, because I have no idea. I'd like something at least as good as OE, if not better.

Just spent a few hours researching this and I have a good feeling that the fact that my Ebrake doesn't do anything means that my older style (pre-89) rear calipers, which depend on Ebrake usage to self-adjust, have gone way out of adjustment - hence the excessive pedal travel.
Apparently this is a common enough issue that GM issued a recall, but the recall only covered manual transmission cars. So I just ordered the recall kit (P/N# 18019028) which should be rebuild kits for both rear calipers and some updated parts to improve the self-adjustment operation.
I am going to start with rebuilding these rears and see how much (if any) improvement i get from that. Warm weather *should* be only a few weeks away.