Bad booster too?!

[Cubey]

Ok, so as everyone probably knows, my 85 E350 RV had an expensive mess of brake work done.

Everything was replaced except brake pads/shoes (pads I'll do, shoes were ok), booster, and proportioning valve. It was due to some idiot putting transmission fluid in the brake system.

Ok, so it seemed that the vacuum pump was part of the problem too. So, I replaced that myself, along with the alt to vac belt.

But, I'm still most lacking power brakes?! It does build up but not quickly as my properly working 87 F250 6.9 does. I get one good power assisted pedal press every 30-45 seconds at idle. I haven't timed it but that's a good guess.

I tried swapping the check valve over from my F250, but I can't say I noticed a difference despite it taking less suction to open it by mouth.

I still have the cruise and vent lines disconnected and capped off at the distribution block.

I also tried disconnecting and capping off trans/throttle just to isolate it down to the booster since I was only idling.

I tried bleeding the booster then starting it while pressing the pedal but it doesn't sink like it should.

Bad booster? Maybe it went bad from the leaky, transmission fluid filled master cylinder, causing fluid to get in it?

Bad new vacuum pump? I guess I need to look up what the vac reading should be and get it tested.

 

[DrCharles]

Right both times. First thing to check is how much vac you have, and if it's leaking somewhere.

 

[Cubey]

Right both times. First thing to check is how much vac you have, and if it's leaking somewhere.

I guess I'll try running the vac pump directly to the booster, bypassing the distribution block, in case that's the leak. I'm out of daylight today unfortunately, so it'll have to wait.

Whats terribly annoying is the wrong sized batteries they [edit: the previous owner] stuck in it, they are group 27 and 31. I could barely get them out! Forget putting the 27 back in, I tried and failed. The proper 65s are fine to get in and out.

I have been pulling one of my truck's newer batteries and swapping it over for testing purposes. It's not cold so even just one battery spins it fast enough right now.

 

[DrCharles]

The shop put two different size batteries in it?

When I bought my truck it had two almost new Group 31's (I'm sure he burned up the old batteries since there was an air intrusion problem)... sitting cockeyed in the trays, no hold downs, and a piece of a Peterbilt rubber mud flap cable-tied over the terminals to keep them from bouncing up and arcing to the hood

It wasn't hard to remove and modify the trays so the 31's sat on the bottom. And buy two inexpensive hold-down kits! It is amazing the kind of crap that people think is acceptable repairs.

 

[Cubey]

The shop put two different size batteries in it?

No, the previous owner did. Probably got used ones for cheaper.

 

[snicklas]

I’m leaning towards booster. If the master was leaking from the plunger seal (brake fluid present where the rod from the booster/pedal pushes) the brake fluid or ATF will eat the rubber diaphragm inside the booster and cause a leak.

Also, if you can hear it over the engine noise, the boosters I’ve had fail, will hiss (the sound of an air leak) when the brake pedal is pushed. However, this was in a gasser pickup, and there was much less ambient noise, which made it easier to hear.

 

[Cubey]

I’m leaning towards booster. If the master was leaking from the plunger seal (brake fluid present where the rod from the booster/pedal pushes) the brake fluid or ATF will eat the rubber diaphragm inside the booster and cause a leak.

Also, if you can hear it over the engine noise, the boosters I’ve had fail, will hiss (the sound of an air leak) when the brake pedal is pushed. However, this was in a gasser pickup, and there was much less ambient noise, which made it easier to hear.

With the doghouse cover partly opened, if I put ny head down at the pedals, I can hear it slightly.

I'm going to go get one of these today.

https://m.harborfreight.com/fuel-pump-and-vacuum-tester-62637.html

I can test the truck first so I can get something to base the Rv's reading off of.

The shop that did the mess of brake work said the old pump seemed to test ok and suggested the booster might be bad, but they weren't sure. I didn't want to throw another $500 at it, $250 alone for vacuum pump including labor is what they wanted. I can tell the brakes are better than they were, when it gets enough vacuum built up, so the $1200 ($850-900 over what parts would have cost me) didn't exactly go to waste. I have been underneath and I can see the new parts they did in fact install.

I just wish i had noticed the calendar the seller left in there with a 10% off coupon off labor for that shop. I'm tempted to call them and ask if they'd consider accepting it now and refunding, if i physically mail it in. (Edit: They wont, claiming the order is "burned in" and can't be reopened.)

 

[Cubey]

It was (at least partly) the 3/8" hose from the vacuum pump.

This is the truck on an ~18 month old vacuum pump, coming directly from the pump:

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This was the van on the old hose:

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New hose from vp to dist block & from dist block to booster, with the vent and throttle lines hooked up too:

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Just when I was satisfied with this, quite literally the lower radiator hose sprung a sizable leak today!!

No, I didn't hit into it. It simply gave up living today. So, new radiator hoses will be here Thursday but I will also replace all heater hoses because it would be stupid not to, with a complete system drain.

Unfortunately, the coolant got contaminated with dirt and crap, due to scrambling to catch the leak, so... new coolant is something else I need to order. Too bad, it looked nice and clean.

Talk about insane GOOD luck that it gave up today. The rig has NOT been moved since I got back 300 miles with it. It's been started and idled a fair bit from dealing with vacuum but yeah.

My horrible luck is often just on the side if being good when it happens.

And yes, the lower hose looks like it could be the original based on the weird as hell clamps. Upper is a newer Gates, but I'm replacing it too just to be safe.

 

[subway]

glad you got it figured out and it was a simple hose, sounds like some of the other rubber is getting old and giving up to now.......at least it was close to home and you were not hauling heavy far away.

i am not sure i would give up on the coolant yet, i have cleaned some up running them through paint strainers and even old t-shirts in my youth.

 

[Cubey]

glad you got it figured out and it was a simple hose, sounds like some of the other rubber is getting old and giving up to now.......at least it was close to home and you were not hauling heavy far away.

i am not sure i would give up on the coolant yet, i have cleaned some up running them through paint strainers and even old t-shirts in my youth.

I might filter it and move it to my truck that needs a coolant change badly. The truck is (hopefully) soon going to be parked/stored.

WM has these huge funnels with a screen. Maybe a tshirt cut open and set inside with work, and cut a hole in a 5 gallon bucket lid to catch the fluid from the funnel.

The 5 gal bucket in the picture is just to store the rest of the drained coolant for now. They only had one, so I couldn't get an extra for filtering purposes just yet. I'm now slowly draining the rest.

I can't remove the radiator cap or the hose will spew too. With the cap on and the radiator drain open, it doesn't. It created enough vacuum that after I drained half of the coolant, I could close the drain and the hose didn't leak, unless I removed the radiator cap.

Oh and the coolant isn't oil contaminated, my drain pan was brand new, so there's that too. So it might be possible to save the old coolant.

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[Cubey]

Oh, there's no saving the coolant. The last 10% that came out (about 6gal total) is filthy. So is the radiator, as one would probably expect.

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[Cubey]

Well, I might reuse the cleaner portion (the worst is in a separate bucket) for doing a flush. It's soon going to be below freezing again at night, so I can't leave pure water in it.

Can you mix radiator flush with antifreeze? About 4 gallons of coolant are still in the engine, based on how much drained from the radiator.

I'm thinking i might just run the garden hose through the radiator with the lower hose off so the large debris can flush out. I need to move it to the concrete driveway first though or it's going to leave the RV in a soggy, somewhat muddy pit.

(Unless I can get a cheap, large diameter hose to fit on the radiator so I can drain it to the street.)

Then put the new hoses on, run a radiator cleaner with the old coolant, redrain as much as I can including from the block, flush with distilled water on a warmer day, then refill with new Zerex G05 that I ordered.

This is a big bloody job when you don't have a shop to work in, and it happened so suddenly. Honestly, the cleaning may have to wait. I'm probably just gonna have to slap on the new lower hose, refill with old coolant and maybe 1 gallon of fresh green 50/50.

Yes, I know it's not right but who knows what it has now. It looks like conventional green to me. I just need to get this thing drivable ASAP and worry about a proper cooling system cleaning in a month or two, once it's not freezing.

It might be worth it for me to pay a shop to do a cooling system cleaning for me and have them use the Zerex on the refill.

I guess I will go ahead and do all the heater hoses this week before I refill it. At least then if I do go with a shop, they only have to clean and flush, not do anything with the hoses.

 

[subway]

ouch, that is unfortunate that you ran into this right now. it does not really surprise me though with a vehicle this old. makes those little coolant filters with the correct additive nice to help avoid this. if you are pushed for time i think i would still filter what you have and toss it in short term. it cant be worse than what was in the system before.

wait until the weather gets a bit warmer and plan on doing a good flush of the system. you can flush with a hose and that is a good start but you will probably need something stronger to break up those deposits. just be careful (or prepared) i had a radiator that looked like that cleaned one time and i found out it was the deposits holding it together all along the bottom. it never leaked but after a professional cleaning bath it was done for. i had to scramble to get an aluminum one in on time to tow the camper.

 

[snicklas]

Also, when changing the heater hoses. On the passenger side, up toward the top of the heater box, where the hoses connect, make sure there’s not a little stub of hose on the heater lines.

We had an 85 E150 302, and replaced all (or so we thought) the coolant lines. Both radiator hoses, both heater hoses (was a front heater only setup, so everything was in the engine compartment), may have been when we changed the water pump or thermostat, before I went off to school, so I wouldn’t have trouble. Within a week or two, I had a coolant leak, a fairly big, pull over now leak.....

What we found was on the hose closest to the engine side of the box, there was I think a valve inline that looked like it was part of the heater core line. It wasn’t, there was a short, maybe 2 inch chunk of hose that was on the core and went to this valve, and then the line to the engine was connected to the other side of the valve.

I hope this explanation/description makes since. I’m going from memory from September 1992...... so it’s been a couple days since I’ve been under the hood of that van.

 

[Cubey]

Also, when changing the heater hoses. On the passenger side, up toward the top of the heater box, where the hoses connect, make sure there’s not a little stub of hose on the heater lines.

Yep, I saw the short piece between the valve and heater box. The valve has an arrow pointing in the direction of the heater box, presumably the coolant flow direction. I drew a crude diagram of the hoses so I don't have to try to remember after they are removed.