Hello. My recently bought 91 Z28 Convertible pulled to the right really bad when I hit the brakes. I mean HARD. I was all over the road. I replaced bearings, seals, rotors, pads and callipers.
Took it for a drive and nearly killed myself. It still pulls to the right like crazy. All mechanisms around the right wheel look alright.
The tires are about half worn, plenty if air in them.
This is my first chevy, I'm a little lost. Does anyone have any suggestions?

thank you very much.

 

Typically this is either a failed rubber hose, or unbled air in the system.

If the age of your rubber hoses is unknown, it's time to replace them.

If you're feeling like upgrading, Earl's sells a kit that includes braided-stainless steel lines to replace all rubber hoses. If not, just hit the parts store and get all of them.

Should be two hoses up front, one at the center of the rear differential, and at least one at the passenger side caliper if you have rear disc brakes...may be one at the driver side rear caliper as well.

 

Also check your pads for uneven wear. both left and right, inner and
outer. If the car is pulling to the right, check the left side rotor for
contamination. Make sure all the hardware is properly lubed with
a good high-temp sythetic grease, such as the 3M stuff.

 

It's the left rubber line.

The steel fittings on them rust on the inside. When that happens, no fluid goes to that caliper. When that happens, that brake no longer works, and the car will pull HARD toward the side with the working brake.

Get the Earl's kit. It's an excellent upgrade even compared to brand-new rubber hoses. Change them all. If there's been enough moisture in thesystem for long enough to do that, then there all just about like that; that one just closed up first.

While you're changing them, DO NOT allow the master cyl to run dry; then when you're done, bleed them until you have all fresh fluid in the whole system.

 

If the car still has the original rubber brake hoses, my guess would be the lines are collapsing under braking pressure which results in your pulling problem. A visual inspection will not show this collapsing condition. Best bet replace with new Braided SS brake lines. Or you can chase all the other suggestions and still have the porblem.

 

Help me understand the physics behind what you're saying...hose does a hose collapse under pressure?

 

A explanation would be a little hard. But this is a COMMON problem on the front brakes with the rubber hoses.

 

An explanation of a hose collapsing under internal pressure would be impossible, because it physically can't happen. Collapsing happens under vacuum, not pressure.


A hose collapsing under vacuum when the brake pedal is released is a common problem. This causes the pads to stay pressed against the rotors and overheat, but they'll still apply just fine when the pedal is pressed.

Under pressure, a weak hose will embolize and eventually burst.

Bad information is a much more COMMON problem but I'm here to help.

 

Gentlemen, thank you all for your input.
I replaced the left rubber brake line and my baby stops straight as an arrow. Awsome.

Again, thanks

 

If one side failed, it's likely the other side isn't too far behind it. You should do the other one as well.

They aren't prohibitively expensive and it's good preventative maintenance. At least with this one it wanted to run off the side of the road. When the right side fails it'll want to put you into oncoming traffic.

 

My explaination of a collapsing rubber brake line was not to everyone liking. But the root cause of your problem was correct.
Glad to see the problem was solved, however the Braided SS lines are still a good investment,

 

I liked it a lot, it just wasn't right.

 

I had a hard brake pull a while back. After replacing everything but the hard lines I still had the pull. It seemed that no one did alignments worth a darn either. Next figuring it must be suspension I had the front end rebuilt and found a really bad right ball joint, after that and another alignment, problem solved no more brake pull.

 

Actually I believe the rubber hose swells up on the inside cutting off fluid flow to the caliper. When you try to gravity bleed the brake with the swelled hose, nothing comes out.

 

I also have the hard right pull when braking hard. It's non-existant If I ease into it first so I ordered the Russell Brake lines from ebay. Now that I've ordered them I see a complaint from 3 years ago in another post that the rear line is prone to braking. Has anyone used these since?