Last Saturday, as I started to head out to Lake Cowichan for our church's annual Father's Day camping weekend, I had a TOTAL brake failure. By the grace of God it happened as I was stopped at a traffic light rather than when I was coming down the other side of the mountain pass I needed to take to get to the lake.
As I stopped at a red light, I applied the brakes firmly to engage the hill-holder on the slight uphill grade. As I did so, the pedal suddenly went soft and went right to the floor. I started to roll backwards so I pulled on the parking brake and put the transmission (DG-200 transmission) into Park. As the light turned green I put it into drive and pulled over to the curb when the road leveled off ahead. As I pulled over I pumped the brakes repeatedly but I had NO hydraulic brakes whatsoever. When I got out of the car I noticed a series of sprays of brake fluid on the pavement behind the car marking my attempts to stop.
A fellow noticed me looking under the car and pulled over to offer assistance. We were able to determine that the steel brake line had sprung a leak just ahead of the driver's side rear wheel. Fortunately, my Good Samaritan owned a used car lot and knew a good guy to call for a tow on a tilt bed type truck. Andy, the tow truck driver was so excited to see my 51 Land Cruiser since he loves older vehicles. It turns out he had owned a Weasel for a short period of time a couple of years ago. He saw an ad on the 'USED Victoria' website and picked it up for $600 and flipped to a Weasel enthusiast in Vancouver. Andy also had a buddy who had owned a 37 Coupe Express a few years ago. I told him about my die-cast 37 CE sitting on my office desk holding my business cards in the pickup bed.
Fortunately, I was just a few blocks from a auto repair shop owned by SDC member, Tom Fiddler and his son. I reached Tom at home since they weren't open on Saturday to let him know of my needs and ask if we could drop the car off in the yard. So... now all is well with the brakes - new hard brake lines and flexible hoses installed. The brake shoes, master cylinder and wheel cylinders were replaced about 6 years ago and are still in good shape. Tom is also replacing my flexible oil line to the OP gauge while he's at it.
Needless to say, my family and I are very grateful that the brakes failed when and where they did. It could have been a very different Father's Day if it had happened on the north side of the Malahat pass.
I am reminded of the advice I have read many times on this forum: FIRST- make it STOP, THEN make it GO!
Cheers,
Jim
As I stopped at a red light, I applied the brakes firmly to engage the hill-holder on the slight uphill grade. As I did so, the pedal suddenly went soft and went right to the floor. I started to roll backwards so I pulled on the parking brake and put the transmission (DG-200 transmission) into Park. As the light turned green I put it into drive and pulled over to the curb when the road leveled off ahead. As I pulled over I pumped the brakes repeatedly but I had NO hydraulic brakes whatsoever. When I got out of the car I noticed a series of sprays of brake fluid on the pavement behind the car marking my attempts to stop.
A fellow noticed me looking under the car and pulled over to offer assistance. We were able to determine that the steel brake line had sprung a leak just ahead of the driver's side rear wheel. Fortunately, my Good Samaritan owned a used car lot and knew a good guy to call for a tow on a tilt bed type truck. Andy, the tow truck driver was so excited to see my 51 Land Cruiser since he loves older vehicles. It turns out he had owned a Weasel for a short period of time a couple of years ago. He saw an ad on the 'USED Victoria' website and picked it up for $600 and flipped to a Weasel enthusiast in Vancouver. Andy also had a buddy who had owned a 37 Coupe Express a few years ago. I told him about my die-cast 37 CE sitting on my office desk holding my business cards in the pickup bed.
Fortunately, I was just a few blocks from a auto repair shop owned by SDC member, Tom Fiddler and his son. I reached Tom at home since they weren't open on Saturday to let him know of my needs and ask if we could drop the car off in the yard. So... now all is well with the brakes - new hard brake lines and flexible hoses installed. The brake shoes, master cylinder and wheel cylinders were replaced about 6 years ago and are still in good shape. Tom is also replacing my flexible oil line to the OP gauge while he's at it.
Needless to say, my family and I are very grateful that the brakes failed when and where they did. It could have been a very different Father's Day if it had happened on the north side of the Malahat pass.
I am reminded of the advice I have read many times on this forum: FIRST- make it STOP, THEN make it GO!
Cheers,
Jim
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