Hi everyone,

This forum has been a great help to me in the past, and am hopeful again:

I have a 1990 Volvo 240. My mechanic just checked the brakes as they were squeaking, and they were fine. He did, however, have to clean out a lot of mud off the brakes from driving through all the puddles we have had recently in North Florida. We have had rain every day here for the last two months.

So of course, I got it stuck in the mud the day after - he's going to be furious at me! - and had to be pulled out by a towing company tonight. I did try to get it out myself first, and the front tires were covered in mud, although I sluiced it off.

On the way to work as I stepped on the brake pedal it sank all the way to the floor with no resistance. I managed to brake by getting car into neutral and pulling up emergency brake. It was intermittent, that is, sometimes the brake sank to the floor, and sometimes it behaved normally. I was half way to my job and still continued to drive to work because I'm a dummy who didn't pull over to the side of the road immediately. However, it's a new job and I'm on 90 day probation, so you can guess what my (wrong) priority was. Right now they're working fine.

I'm going to go to my mechanic tomorrow morning no matter what, but was wondering since he just checked the brakes and they were fine, does anyone think it's just mud on the rotors, or something like that? Or did I possibly break a line? I did gun the motor a bit trying to get it out of the mud, but not much, like 5 seconds two or three times and not very hard.

If I can vent, this happened because I was parking by the house, as for the last two months I let a friend park her BIG van with HUGE tires, high up off the ground, in the sweet spot by the drive way. Her apartment complex was complaining about her having two vehicles there. I live in the country, have a dirt driveway, and to get to the house you have to pass through a slight depression in the (in the dirt) driveway. This slight depression became a lake over the last two months and today the water was dried up into a thick gooey oozy mud. My friend was parked in my usual parking spot farther way, on high ground. I can't say anything to her, but...

Two hundred and fifty dollars later...

They say no good deed goes unpunished, lol.

Best regards to the board.

DD

 

You say "right now they are working fine..." Leave them alone as long as they are OK. Why the pedal sank to the floor? I don't know but after such an incident strange things may happen.

 

For a non safety issue, I would consider not having it checked if it was working again, and just wash off tires/rotors. But not for a safety issue, and particularly not for brakes.

Thanks anyway.

 

If your brake pedal went to the floor, you lost fluid pressure. Either it leaked out or the master cylinder didn't seal. Either one is a serious safety issue.

 

if your brake pedal went to the floor... even just once... the entire system needs to be checked.
you can't depend on your e-brake to always stop the car safely. get it checked again!

 

Mud won't cause the peddle to go to the floor. Something is not right and need someone to look at it. Do you have brake fluid in bottle. Don't drive it until it is fixed or you could hurt someone. Think about driving 50 mph and hitting the brakes and they are not there.

 

So, what kind of "checking" is gonna be done on brakes that are currently functional? Obviously he hasn't lost all his brake fluid or he'd have no brakes now, even if he lost on circuit he'd still have 50% . The only thing I can think of is of a failing master cylinder, mired in the mud and who knows what it must have been... If this happens again, pumping the pedal would be helpful, then change that M/C...

 

A reasonable check would be to see if the fluid level is up. Otherwise, it would be prudent to follow the failure back to the most likely source, the master cylinder, and change it. A new master cylinder for this car is in the $30 range. The car is nearly 30 years old. It would not be a stretch to find a failing master cylinder at that age.

 

The brake fluid level is a no brainer. I wouldn't put a $30 MC, a decent one is $150, plus installation, plus bleeding, plus, etc. Looking at $4-500 bill for a guess on $1,000 worth of a car...

 

Here's a Beck/Arnley unit that is brand new for $41.79. That's an OEM supplier.

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...287031&jsn=387

 

OEM supplier but not to Volvo... ATE is who supplies MCs pretty much all Volvos of that vintage... I don't like to put Chinese parts in critical areas... High failure!

 

 

Thank you, everyone. The discussion helped me drill down what to say when I called my guy.

I'm going to replace the master cylinder as my mechanic agreed that's the best way to go. I'm going to use whatever my mechanic recommends. He only works on Volvos and is one of those cult mechanics you trust with your life. There are people who come from 300 miles away to have their car serviced by him and his sons.

Thanks, again. You have no idea how the knowledge of everyone here helps people like me who are car challenged.

 

You made a wise choice. My guess is that he will install a new Beck/Arnley unit.

 

I find it interesting that after suggestions from this form and your discussion with your master mechanic that he goes along with your suggestion. Why would I think that a master mechanic would have diagnosed this as the problem in the first place.

 

There is no mention of the mechanic ever checking the "pedal to the floor" condition. The OP mentions that he is going back to the mechanic and came here looking for advice before he went. From the original post it seems that the complaint was brake squeal which the mechanic cleaned out the calipers and probably used caliper grease to quiet the brakes.

It seems that they had a conversation prior to taking the car back in that was based upon the advice given in this forum.

After handling thousands of Volvos in the past 20 years, I do not have the powers to solve a problem without being consulted on it initially.

 

My mechanic checked my breaks because they were squeaking. That was last week. He said the brakes were filled with mud and he cleaned it out and that there was no other issue, including the rotors, which were fine.

There was no problem after that with squeaking.

AFTER he checked the brakes, the pedal sank to the floor. I read the discussion here and asked him if changing the master cylinder was the next step - I wouldn't have known even what to mention if I hadn't come here - and he said he would check everything else too, but he thought it was a good idea as it was very old and often, even if the brakes are working again, the issue can come up again suddenly.

Since I called him in advance, he can order the part before I come in and I can have the work done the same day rather than leaving the car there for several days, or having to return. This is very useful for me as I live in the country and only have one vehicle.

This man, Richard of Richard's Imports, did thousands of dollars of work for me for almost FREE when I was ill and I was incapable of working for several months. We all sit around in the office while he's working on our cars and talk about how we'd like to buy a Toyota (or whatever) but can't, and we can't move to another city, because then we'd lose Richard. When you walk into his office his desk is piled high with offerings - mine is usually a homemade blueberry cheesecake - of food and gifts.

Hope this clarifies things.

 

Sounds like a good man. Would like to hear the outcome of replacing the MC. Good luck.

 

A great personal story about Richard and his expertise:

My former car, another Volvo of course, kept veering to the right and I had it re-balanced through someone Richard knew, for about $100. This was ten years ago.

After re-balancing it was better but still kept veering, although it was slight. I went to another place, and they told me I needed 'this' and 'that' and it would cost another $150. So I went to Richard just to ask him what he thought. He gave me a look, the famous 'Richard look', took the car keys from me and drove the car around the block. When he came back he took a hammer and tapped the left rear wheel lightly, or maybe it was some other place on the underside of the left side of the car, returned the car keys and said I could go and that there was no charge.

The car drove perfectly after that.

 

Yes, he is, thank you. He could have easily said the rotors needed changing, but didn't.

I will let the board know what the outcome is.