Brake Fail (lucky)

[Arctic]

Today i went out in the tourer on the hunt for some resistors to help trace the airbag light which is playing me up, travelled to local car shop about 8 miles away, no luck got no resistors.

As always i put my foot on the brake pedal before engaging drive, (Auto) pedal went flat to the floor pumped it a couple of times seemed to be ok, as i pull off to get of the carpark pedal down again.

Anyways car crawled back home using the auto box and low speeds, car did stop but only when pedal was fully down.

Pulled on the drive checked the brake fluid below minimum, so topped it up started car again pumped the brake pedal and heard a pop, no fluid in the reservoir, jacked car up drivers side and found this below.

1

So was really lucky i was not traveling at speed when it gave way, another job to take car of once the weather changes

[macafee2]

lucky. Is it just fatigue that has cause that? I don't think in the 8? years of being on the forum anyone else has mentioned that sort of failure.

Just thank your lucky stars it happened when it did.
If you had an American car you would have rolled over a few times and blown up in a ball of fire

How well does the auto engine brake?

macafee2

[ceedy]

Exactly what happened to my auto couple a weeks ago , but was a back pipe.
Luckily I was just turning the car round to do the autobox fluid, but happened at the road junction, so a momentary bum twitch
A tiny pin hole from rust

C

[RogerHeinz57]

Good to hear all is ok and no incident Steve, There are problems that come around with the older cars as we all know, some older cars on the mot test brake rollers do the exact same thing. Makes a mess and frightening when you think this could happen at any time. Glad you're ok and it should be a fairly easy job to rectify & possibly worth checking the other corners of the car. Many things can cause this type of disaster, which include the lack of supporting calipers properly when changing pads generating stress to flexible and rigid brake pipes which never got designed to be treated in such manner.
Glad you got home ok.

[Arctic]

Hi Ian.
Yes i think rust fatigue inside the rubber part as caused it, yet to fully investigate, the Auto can be controlled easy by throttle pedal as you can just creep home and as said the hose had no popped until i was on my drive just was most likely leaking.

Hi Chris
yes it make you think another local member as had his brake fail due to rust holes in the pipe where the it goes through the clips under the car, so they really do need checking, i check mine every couple of months but never even saw what as happened to mine.

HI John.
Thanks for your concern very lucky indeed no incident, i have heard of a few failing when going through the MOT mainly hose splitting though not fail where mine did, i have already ordered four new hoses, and will most likely change all the brake pipes now as well even though front to back pipe had been done just before i purchased the car back in 2018.

The hoses are original from what i can see so seeing that they are 18 years old not bad, but it is worth thinking if any pipe work need doing you may as well change the hoses as well.

[macafee2]

Originally Posted by Arctic

Hi Ian.
Yes i think rust fatigue inside the rubber part as caused it, yet to fully investigate, the Auto can be controlled easy by throttle pedal as you can just creep home and as said the hose had no popped until i was on my drive just was most likely leaking.

.

I meant if you had been driving at speed, how well can you force an auto down to first? I seem to recall they can be forced down but i dont know how it compares to a manual

macafee2

[Vossy]

Glad your okay Steve, are you fitting originals or the reinforced ones?

[Arctic]

[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Vossy

Glad your okay Steve, are you fitting originals or the reinforced ones?[/QUOTE

]

Hi Steve.
I intend to fit the original ones, if they lasted 18 yrs they can't be bad hopefully they will arrive by Friday coming.

[Vossy]

[QUOTE=Arctic;2921306]

]

Hi Steve.
I intend to fit the original ones, if they lasted 18 yrs they can't be bad hopefully they will arrive by Friday coming.

I looked at mine on the last MOT and thought maybe it was time for mine for to be changed too, mine are 18 years old now so, as you say they have lasted well, it's one of the things you don't think about until it happens.

[AndyN01]

Originally Posted by macafee2

I meant if you had been driving at speed, how well can you force an auto down to first? I seem to recall they can be forced down but i dont know how it compares to a manual

macafee2

I can't answer the specific question about an auto box but something I was told many decades ago to slow down if the brakes fail was to simply turn the ignition off - obviously without setting the steering lock.

The physics is that there is no power stroke so you are using all of the engine compression to slow down.

Fortunately I've never had to try it out .

Any thoughts on whether this would actually work?