Mechanic has installed 3rd bad Master Cylinder, What would you do?

factoryblue

Registered User
About a year ago Sarah starting having trouble with the brakes on her 89. We took it to Ford and a separate Lincoln dealer, both saying it was discontinued. We got a tip about a place that was well established that would convert ABS to standard. One week and $1200 later we recieved the car back with a rebuilt Bendix cylinder and new lines. The brakes worked fine for a month and then quit, as in the pedal could go to the floor! We towed it to the shop and they said sometimes you get a bad rebuild. ~~~, we are talkin gbout brakes, the thing that can save your life! We got another rebuild no cost. Two months later they failed again as I flew through a red light(hard pedal). The mechanic claimed it was a bad batch! He said it would be finish next day first priority. Got the car back after they finished only to find the brakes were bad for the thrird time. I had told him to put NEW Ford parts on and he had the nerve to say it would cost extra. Looking under the hood, I dout the totched it. Sarah and I are considering legal action and will be notifing the press. I'd rather not mention things that failed to work besides the brakes after we got it back. Tomarrow I will be contacting the Cincinnati Equirer and my legal office. What would you do??? :confused:
 
I can't help you with any legal advise but it will probably cost you more to sue them than you will recover in court has been my experience. A complete guaranteed rebuilt ABS assembly is available from priorremanufactureing.com for under $400 exchange for SCCoA members. It was a big mistake to convert it. The mechanic is an idiot. If you have or can recover the old unit send it to Prior for exchange and get a reputable and skilled mechanic to install it. If not find a used one at a junk yard or one of the parts cars in the classified section of this site and get it exchanged if it's not any good.
 
Notify the B.B.B first of all and tell them about the problem, Mike is right they should have never done the convertion in the first place, but you are beyond that now. If I were you, I would start trying to find a used ABS unit at a juck yard, after you find it then have it rebuilt. You might also try to find a unit by posting at tccoa.com, www.pub83.ezboard.com/bthunderbirdunderground. There are many others with the same kind of problem and I'm sure you can find someone who can help.
 
conversion

a shop took OFF abs and put on standard brakes?....Reminds me of all the shops in the mid 80's that would remove electronic ignition distributors and put points back in, "to make 'em run right! ".......... anyway you can get a NEW master cylinder at NAPA i'm sure, you dont have to get a ford one. but who knows what it's off of in the first place, certainly not an SC.......might be fun to find the right one, my suggestion would be to bite the bullet and put the ABS back on and fix it right. get ANOTHER shop to do the work if you can't do it yourself!
 
Did they replace the hard metal brake lines and valves going to the rear wheels or just replaced the mastercylinder with a non ABS cylinder? By the way T-birds did come WITHOUT ABS also. The lines and valves HAVE to be replaced with NON ABS parts for the system to work. ABS works with higher pressure than non ABS. The pressure which is lower in non ABS cannot get through the valves in the brakelines properly and will really OVERWORK a non ABS mastercylinder. Sounds like thats what is happening!
 
Lousy, but this might make you feel better

I took my car to a Ford dealership for a power steering line, and a wheel bearing. They charged me 1800 bucks to do this. Now, in order to repair the PS line, they dropped the rack, understandable, but when they put it back they forgot to put the washers back over the bushings, i found this out the hard way. I was driving down 303 (main road, lotsa traffic) and the damn rack popped off the K-frame (I make in my pants sometimes...yaaaaaayyyyy) and poof, no steering, at all, power or otherwise. Thats a very scary, and unpleasent thing to lose your steering at 55. So I called up ford screaming all kinds of vulgar, foul, disgusting things at them, and they told me to have the car brought back and they would do a whole bunch of $h!t for free (random sensors, hoses, belts free oil change and regular PM). So, I brought it back and they kept it for a week with the excuse that some of the stuff was still on order. Anyways, I went to get the car and they would'nt release it unless I paid for parts that went on it (286 bucks) so I paid them just to get my car back, I get in to drive it away, and the 500 Dollar radio is missing :mad:. Anyways, long story short I called the cops, made a report, and still nothing to this day. I got screwed for like 2100 bucks. Feel better??? :D
 
abs

factoryblue said:
About a year ago Sarah starting having trouble with the brakes on her 89. We took it to Ford and a separate Lincoln dealer, both saying it was discontinued. We got a tip about a place that was well established that would convert ABS to standard. One week and $1200 later we recieved the car back with a rebuilt Bendix cylinder and new lines. The brakes worked fine for a month and then quit, as in the pedal could go to the floor! We towed it to the shop and they said sometimes you get a bad rebuild. WTF, we are talkin gbout brakes, the thing that can save your life! We got another rebuild no cost. Two months later they failed again as I flew through a red light(hard pedal). The mechanic claimed it was a bad batch! I told him I don't give a F! He said it would be finish next day first priority. Got the car back after they finished only to find the brakes were bad for the thrird time. I had told him to put NEW Ford parts on and he had the nerve to say it would cost extra. Looking under the hood, I dout the totched it. Sarah and I are considering legal action and will be notifing the press. I'd rather not mention things that failed to work besides the brakes after we got it back. Tomarrow I will be contacting the Cincinnati Equirer and my legal office. What would you do??? :confused:

I was woundering I have had the hard break problem in two different super coupes now, a 1989 and 1990, and found that it was not the ABS unit at all. It turned out to be a bad ignition switch. Not the key switch, but the switch in the steering column. When I ran across this problem in both cars, I also found that the heater blower motor would not work properly, and some times the radio would go on and off. Try turning your heater motor to defrost(high) and with the car running wiggle the ignition key back and forth without turning the car off, and see if the blower motor stops running at any time. If it does this means that your ignition switch is bad, and if not you might want to change anyway, because they are only 20.00 dollars new at fisher automotive. Let me know if this helps you.
 
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