Brake Failure / Ramblings (kinda long)

["Christopher A. Woodward" <cwoodwar@bellsouth.net>]

I know you've heard this before, but....

Every time you press down on the brake pedal, you're betting your life
that they will work.  And, seemingly always, they do.  Unless you have
some sort of problem.  Then, everything can fall apart in a hurry.  The
other day, I had my CQ's hydraulic pump rebuilt.  I re-installed it, and
started getting a brake light every time I hit the pedal hard.

Mistake #1--I just hoped it would go away.

I now know the complete reason why the pump install did not work as
planned.  First, it was a bad pump.  One of the "pucks" had a defective
seal, and this was causing a pressure (and slow fluid) loss.  Second, my
bomb, as I already suspected, was on its way out.

Mistake #2--I had been putting off doing my bomb because, though it
failed the test (~8 or 10 pumps before pedal gets hard) it was not
casuing the warning light to come on.

Put these two items together, and you have a recipe for disaster.  When
the defective seal on my pump finally failed (blew out spewing pentosin
all over the engine bay), I had little if any warning.  I was taking an
exit off I-85 at about 70MPH and luckily for me it was uphill.  As I
tapped the brakes to slow down some, the light came on.  As I took a
right in the "keep moving" lane, I noticed the steering was almost
completely unassisted.  I needed to slow down to turn off the road, and
this is when I realized there was no brake assist at all.  I was able to
use the handbrake to slow down and pull into a McDonalds without killing
myself or anyone else, fortunately.  But it was a scary experience
nonetheless.

With that said, I want to thank John and Paul at Autobahn Performance
for taking care of me after this.  I'm sure most of the Atlanta listers
know about their shop, but just in case, I highly recommend it.  They
had sent my pump off to be rebuilt, so it was not at all their fault.  I
couldn't get a tow truck to come get me anytime this century, so Paul
came out to me and replaced the seal on the pump and I was on my way.  I
went to my appointment (better late than never) and then stopped by
Autobahn to thank them.  John told me that the pump guy had been down
and brought another CQ pump to give to me, and he wanted to pay for
Autobahn to change it for me.  This, IMO, was going above and beyond
what he had to, since 1) the pump was now OK, though it may have more
bad seals (he said there was a bad batch)  and  2) I did the
installation myself, so I expected no labor warranty.

I went ahead and ordered a bomb for my car, and I will be bringing it to
Autobahn when it comes in to have both the pump and the bomb replaced.
Until then, I will not be driving my car, because it is simply not safe
to do so.  For those of you putting off replacing one of these
components, STOP!  Isn't your life worth at least a few hundred bucks?

Chris