Today I got my windshield installed so I was able to drive my car for the first time (other than up and down my street twice). My nieghbor Jeff (jt914-6), who has been insturmental in my build, was here so we jumped in, buckled up and headed for jeeperjohn's house for the test drive and to check on his progress. The car was running beautiful I think the flat spots in the tires were even rounding out! We got about 11 miles from home when we approached an intersection and the brake pedal hit the floor. After a breif panic (and Jeff screaming to grab the e-brake) we successfully skided to a stop 1/4 of the way into the intersection . For the rest of the drive home, no brakes. Once into the driveway and out of the car it was evident the problem was at the right front wheel. Brake fluid everywhere. It turns out that the four bolts that hold the front caliper together had not been tighten and had backed out allowing the caliper to seperate. After removing the caliper and inspecting it there was no damage to the o-rings. Reassemble, qwick trip to get more brake fluid and rebleed the brakes. Oh ya and check the other calipers . We were off for another test drive. It's all good . More driving tommorrow Glad it happened here and not on the way to Tahoe!!

Glad to hear it! I'm sure many of us are bringing tools with us just in case. With trailerd cars following us... Hope we don't need a tow. I've been double checking everything too. When I bought mine, I flew to LA and drive it to NorCal. When I got home I found ALL CV bolts about to fall off! Not sure what kept them on. 7 hours on the road with no problems until I looked under it when I got home. I had no tools with me on the drive. My 12pt CV tool in my box in the garage. I'm sure glad they did not come loose on the road. Moral of the story, check your CV's!

I didn't think there was an untouched bolt on the car. I didn't check these cause they were new calipers .
Started putting my tool box together as well. After todays drive I just realized I might want to put some TP in there

If that happened to me with the wife in the car I would have to include toilet paper in the checklist!! Glad you came through that okay. Happy motoring, in your future trips!

Ian Stott
Moncton
Canada

This is exactly the situation that makes me cringe when I think of those people who've installed 'upgrade' rear brakes and have no more emergency brake.

Glad it's all okay!

Yep, talk about a scary moment!! Cars at that intersection are always going 60-65mph when the light is green!!

We were lucky!

I second the CV Bolts check!!! I have had some loosen up on me but I noticed before it was a problem!!

Your car is looking great and it has been fun putting it together!



PS: Wow jt914-6 flew out from Arkansas to help you???

The PO of my car installed 930 brakes with no E brake. I purchased and installed a hydraullic E brake. I know it's not the same but it works! Hope I don't loose all my fluid though. I'm not sure if I could ever source all the Factory E brake parts for a 930/914 hybrid system.

Congrats. I have the brake switch, i'll drop it off.

For those on the world awhile back questioning we old timers calling it an "e-brake" or an "emergency brake"

~ & not a " 'parking brake' ... that I [you] don't need anyway when you're parking...." etc.

Point made!!!!

Thanx Lennie & glad the ole e-brake worked for you & the cables didn't bind up!

Funny you mentioned that Tom, I said the same thing to Jeff. It was truly an emergency brake and not a parking brake yesterday!

Thank goodness for a working E-Brake!

Especially in that intersection! One road is a 50MPH speed limit, the other was a 55. Could have been toast for sure.

yup, EMERGENCY brake. new cars tend to lack them and only have a parking brake (Pee - Brake) some new hondas I could drive all day long with the Pee-brake on and not even notice it. heck the rear drums were so tiny they made teh drums on my VW Bug look massive!!!


the idea of the E-brake goes back to the days of single circuit hydrolic brakes. then your only back up was the E-brake. since the mid sixties duel circuit brakes have become the norm so the need for the E-brake is less.

I am surprised that in the above story that all hydrolic braking was lost when only the front caliper leaked. with the dual circuit system, the driver still should have had full rear disc brake function, which would be as good as the E-brake.

I'd question why the rear hydrolic syustem did not take over and stop the car. the rear system appear to have failed also. if you only address the front leaking caliper, you have not addressed the non-functinal rear hydrolic system.

Go back and repair your rear hydrolic circuit, it has surely let you down in this case and is dangerous to drive until it is repaired.

All of the fluid draind out of the resevor/master cylinder and out the front right caliper! It was not just leaking a little bit, the caliper split in two when the 4 bolts backed out enough to allow it!

Bet you split your shorts in two from the pucker as well !

The reservoir is split to avoid having a leak from one circuit drain all the fluid from both circuits. There's a possibility that if Lennie had stepped harder on the pedal or lifted and stepped again, the rear brakes would have functioned, although you still won't stop as fast.

But it's really hard to think of all that in the 1.5 seconds while it's happening.

soem thing is wrong, the rear brakes shoudl have worked with only the leak in the front caliper. In fact I think you wont need to pump them, the rears should have come on and brakes with the first peddle full stroke. seeing as it is logical too press harder on the pedel when your failing to stop, I assume he did that.

If the rear hydrolic brakes did not work, and stopping had to happen with the hand brake, I believe there is a serius defect in the rear hydrolic brakes. No pumping should be required to work the rear brakes even if the fronts lose all fluid. some thing aint right, get it fixxed!!!!!!

Lennie did the venting clearances on the rear and I didn't double check them but he said they were set to .004. But, I think he did it before the final bleeding! I guess that could have accounted for the rears not working. They did slow the car a bit but not enough to stop it from even 15 mph!

I believe you would have to at least pump once to get the rears working. The initial fail would only allow the differential piston to move forward, not enough fluid in that initial pump to engage the rear brakes. The following pump should start the rear brakes working, since the residual pressure in the front system is gone. If there is zero fluid in the supply line, I don't think the rears will really work at all, since the second pump will now require fluid to re-fill the master. Thats why modern cars have two distinct reservoirs for fluid.

the 914 does have two distink resevoirs, molded in one container, it has two lines to feed the master, one for front, one for back. with the front out of fluid, the peddle travel would be much more, but the rears shoudl have worked. I do not belive pumping is required to get the rears to work, (I might be wrong but that is my understanding of the system. at any rate he had no hydrolic brakes, dont know if he pumped or not. Something dont seem right

the 914 came with a dual circuit system specifically design to allow one circuit to function with complete fluid loss of the other circuit.

Holy crap... I'm glad you guys are OK...

I doubt the 914 has a true dual setup.

When bleeding the brakes on a 914, if i open the bleeder screw on just one caliper, the brake pedal goes to the floor with the first push and you will NOT be able to pump it back up to get any brake engagement on any of the wheels until the bleeder screw is closed.

In a scenario where one caliper splits/explodes or a line pops, one would expect the same behavior.

Which is, sudden and complete loss of all 4 brakes.
Andy

Just got home and I'm cathing up on the thread. Trust me, I was pumping the hell out of the brakes. I understand the theory on the resivoir being divided. But now that everything is back together and rebled, I can lock up all four brakes. The master cylinder and all four calipers are brand new (rebuilts) and seem to function. So do I need to investigate further? Is anyone going to want to be in front of me in the caravan to Tahoe?

Able to lock up all 4, now thats impossible!

Actually, I lost all the fluid from a bad caliper when I first got the car. It would just barely brake.

The factory manuals state that it's a dual circuit system and that you should still have braking power in the event of a line failure (or similar). BUT, there seems to be an overwhelming lack of information regarding how when and why this safety feature comes into play.

I had a similar failure as 'Lennies914'.

The drivers side rear caliper blew up and that resulted in a INSTANT loss of all brakes.

The pedal went straight to the floor and pumping did not yield any stopping ability ...


Andy

Having been in the car I can say that there was very minimal, if any, ability to stop the car! I felt it slow as Lennie pressed the brake but it would not stop if there was nothing else to slow it down even with the pumping!! Thats why I yelled "grab the e-brake"!