Is the motor supposed to kick on every time you brake? Please help.
A great big NO! Read prier posts or e-mail me direct.
Phil
I saved Phil's writeup from a few months ago, C&P'd here:
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By Phil Aubrey (Paubrey) on Monday, November 10, 2003 - 09:43 pm:
The POWERMASTER, a very misunderstood unit. A little knowledge can save you a lot of money. I have over 95000 miles and 16 years on the assembly line unit and it still works fine. I am on my third accumulator and had the recall done on the replacement of the black switch to gray.
Most common mistakes.
The red dash “brake” lights comes on when the main brakes are applied. This is the time to park the car NOW until the problem is fixed. The pump motor cannot run for more than 30 seconds without a long rest to cool down. Under normal conditions it only runs for 2 to 3 seconds on a cycle. The dash light indicates low pressure and the pump is working too hard. Driving in this condition will burn the pump motor up quick. The most common failure here is the accumulator. They loose their charge over the years and won’t last forever. My experience has been four to five years before they give out. There is an easy test for them. With the key off pump the pedal 20 to 30 times until it gets real hard. Using a watch with a second hand time the motor when you turn the key on. It should not run for more than 15 seconds. 7 to 10 seconds is desired. It helps to have things real quiet so close the door, radio off, seat belt buckled and don’t start engine. If the run time is 15 seconds or more you are loosing the charge in the accumulator or have an internal by-pass in the cylinder. I perform this test every two months on my cars. 90% of the time it's the accumulator.
Motor over-worked during pump bleeding of brakes. The system should be pressure bleed or vacuum bleed. Never pump bleed with the key on. This will burn the motor up. If you must pump bleed do it with the key off.
There is a very nice factory service bulletin, 87513B that will take you thru the problem diagnostics. It’s easy to understand and use. Pump and motors don’t fail because they are worn out, they fail because they are over worked for some other reason.
18011279 old motor and pump number
18038503 new motor and pump number both include the relay
18038503 switch
18038507 accumulator
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Dean
I read the article "Brake Dancing" by Ken Mosher that I found at this site; discussed adding a line lock and then bleeding the brakes, and it said to bleed them - pump the pedal with bleeder open - with the ignition ON. This is what I just did on my car because the pedal was very soft ( I got the car with a blown engine and am just getting it going; don't know what shape the brakes were in).
But you say never bleed them with the ignition ON. My pump motor ran for a couple seconds each time I depressed the pedal while bleeding it. Can you tell me what is the correct bleeding procedure - with the ignition ON of OFF? Does it matter, as long as the pump motor is never allowed to run very long at a time?
I always bleed them with the ignition ON and let the pump push the fluid out. Seems to work better for me than with the ignition OFF. As long as the pump isn't running more than a few seconds, it shouldn't make any difference.