From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: Regarding the loss of my brakes on the MH
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:43:50 -0400
Message-ID: <6lfnd4lk7tl8pu4jihld27mjnku4g39mqf@4ax.com>

On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:24:32 -0400, Lee <lbray5032@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>Well just got in from the garage I took my motor home to and was told
>they cannot find anything wrong with my brakes.  They said they will
>do a flush of the brake system and check it again.  They said they had
>even tried panic stops and it worked perfectly.  Lucky for me I am not
>having to pay by the hour for a non fix.  But better safe than sorry!
>They also said it was a possibility though that a brake might of hung
>up and overheated the fluid or at least that is what I remember.  Plus
>going to check the parking brake just in case.

You'd have had to be using your brakes HARD for the fluid to overheat enough
to boil, even if the fluid were somewhat wet.  If you were, that might be an
explanation.

If it were my rig, I'd replace the master cylinder with a new one.  You got an
early warning that it is failing.  Best to listen.  The cost is relatively
trivial, especially compared to what a failure might cost.

BTW, when a master cylinder is almost worn out, panic stops usually work fine.
The sudden force on the plunger lets fluid inertia force the rubbers out
against the cylinder wall.  It will usually fairly reliably fail if you just
barely push on the pedal enough to move it.  Frequently the pedal will slowly
go all the way to the floor.  It'll feel OK if you let it retract and then
stab it again.  That's the master cylinder screaming "REPLACE ME... REPLACE
ME.." :-)

John