Holy Crap, let me change my undershorts . . .

delling3

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Coming to the end of an evening cruise last night, about 1/4 mile from home, doing about 50 in traffic. Suddenly, and without warning, I had no power steering and no power brakes. It seems that the serpentine belt chose that exact moment to reach end of life.

Despite the very sudden/unexpected change in control of the Mustang, I was able to compensate to avoid an accident, and made it home safe.

I have worked on old British sports cars, a mid-sixties Chrysler 300, as well as vintage Japanese motorcycles, but this '96 GT is the most "modern" car I have turned a wrench on. I like to work on this stuff as a hobby, but I'll take the daily driver to the shop when it needs service. Suffice to say, the last car that I worked on with power brakes had a big vacuum booster, and pretty much as long as the engine was running, you had power brakes. Never really occurred to me that things have changed.

I know, I am an idiot!
 

laramik

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I don't think that makes you an idiot by any means. I think most folks wouldn't know that these are hydro boost and even if they did may not put it together that if the belt fails so does your power steering and brakes. Glad you made it home safe!

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lwarrior1016

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That’s why I switched to manual steering and manual brakes. Now they work no matter what the engine does.


Good thing you avoided catastrophe though. I’m glad to hear that.
 

PinkieT

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I feel your pain! I had a 66 Satellite with a "jelly jar" master cylinder, one pot feeding all four wheels. A brake line blew while I was on the freeway in downtown Fort Worth. Judicious use of lower gears, the parking brake, and lots of luck got me home safely. I swapped it out for a two pot 67 master cylinder and proportioning valve so if it happened again I would have at least half braking... That said, I have driven cars with bad vacuum power brake boosters. If you lose hydroboost, do you lose all braking or is it a leg machine on wheels?
 

laramik

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I feel your pain! I had a 66 Satellite with a "jelly jar" master cylinder, one pot feeding all four wheels. A brake line blew while I was on the freeway in downtown Fort Worth. Judicious use of lower gears, the parking brake, and lots of luck got me home safely. I swapped it out for a two pot 67 master cylinder and proportioning valve so if it happened again I would have at least half braking... That said, I have driven cars with bad vacuum power brake boosters. If you lose hydroboost, do you lose all braking or is it a leg machine on wheels?
It's a leg machine on wheels. My HB is dying I think. Either that or the PS pump or tensioner. Either way, same difference I suppose, but it has a very hard pedal. Requires much more force than others I've driven. But I've driven an old astro rape van that had the hydroboost fail catastrophically and it was noooooo fun. Limped it home but took literally all of my strength in both legs to come to a stop.

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01yellercobra

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I used to drive a 57 Ford dump truck when I landscaped. It was a two ton truck with splitter rear end, granny gear, and a 312. I learned that the workers hadn't been taking care of it when pushed on the brake pedal and it went to the floor. And I was going downhill and there was a turn at the end. Thankfully I wasn't going fast and was able to use the gears. But that made me pucker a bit. After I got it parked I checked the master cylinder and it was dry. Found the leaking line after that.
 

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