Why does my brake pedal go to the floor and no visible fluid is leaking

5

Asked by Gspot Mar 17, 2013 at 06:44 AM about the 1989 Lincoln Town Car Signature

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

All of a sudden my brake pedal went to the floor and there is fluid in the master cylinder and no physical leaks

18 Answers

Wiggle the brake petal by hand and see if the linkage has come apart in the cabin, under the dash, at the point at or before where it turns from mechanical linkage to hydraulic, either there or under hood, or your master cylinder has completely failed. There is not necessarily going to be a leak if the master cylinder has gone bad

30 people found this helpful.

It's very easy to blame a leak and fill the master cylinder not payin' attention to where the fluid may have gone to...as a matter of fact it has filled in the space where the brake pads used to occupy, and think that you're making the world a better place by toppin' it off, in fact are deceiving yourself by ignoring the worn brake pads-

11 people found this helpful.
177,415

The car is twenty four years old. It could have developed a leak and the safety slug in the master cylinder could be cemented in place from age. It could be leaking inside the rear drum brakes from the wheel cylinders or have a internal leak in the vacuum booster.

16 people found this helpful.

Yeah, TS, but for the petal to just drop all the way to the floor? The way he put it is like it just has no resistance at all. But acknowledged... The fluid could be going somewhere unnoticed.

13 people found this helpful.

I have gotten 12 emails in 2 days "your picture has been removed" so I really do try to not upload copyrighted images

2 people found this helpful.

yeah H25, they are selectively nutzo~~~ about this! they pulled a picture of my 61 cadillac sayin that it wasn't mine, when there was also a picture of me in 1985, standin next to it (actually pushing the disabled machine) that apparently just didn't bother to look at, but said to themselves "we have nothing to lose by bringin down the hatchet"- when is something considered public domain? as far as I'm concerned, if you can pick it from the web...it's fair game!

4 people found this helpful.

True Bob. The only way is if has COPYRIGHT 2010 pasted across it. The ones I had pulled were from wikipedia, which I know are public. Ol' Henry, now let's not get too harsh on him. From the interactions I have had with him he is one of the good guys

2 people found this helpful.

But back to the question, I still say linkage but only if is is as loose as like flops down and stays there. Otherwise, I will go with TS, he does make sense.

3 people found this helpful.

Henry is amazing. I have nothing but respect for this man..he has said that he'd get fired if he did what I asked, but still works around his obstacle filled-world- no, don't really know what is going on in their secret meetings, but sure to be self-important for the very etherial, intangeble predispositions-

3 people found this helpful.
50

If you want to put pics on here and avoid the google bots that delete them just open the image in Microsoft Paint ( everybody computer has that) and spray paint dots in the blank spaces and draw a thick color border or two around the image inside the margin -- sometimes two lines - whatever does not get in the way of what you want to see. The bot will not recognize the image and it won't get deleted.

5 people found this helpful.

I looked and looked for a diagram of a master cylinder inner workings that is not copyrighted, There are many, I don't think this one is. If the primary system fails, there is a redundant reservoir that will provide brakes to two wheels if the plunger for some reason does not pressurize the entire system. You will have brakes, but at greatly reduced effect. So we are back to linkage.

28 people found this helpful.
100

it is leaking in front of back wheel around something that look like and miniture oil filter.

2 people found this helpful.
100

but remember i had to stop real fast . so dummy pulled front of me.

5 people found this helpful.
20

brake pads are good but the feeling's not get into the brakes what do I do fluids are not getting to the brake pads what do I do

2 people found this helpful.

i had a problem that ended up being delamination inside the hoses acted like a check valve

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