I had my brake booster and mastercylinder replaced in April of this year, the parts came from a reputable Chevelle parts suplier and operated great for a few months and slowly started to fade some and then the gasket between my carb spacer and intake started to leak which I think helped affect my brakes operate less eficiently since it probaly caused a vacum leak. Anyway fastforward to today, I drove my chevelle after getting the vacum leak fixed (brakes worked perfectly) I get home let it sit for five hours then back it out of the garage, wash it and pull it back in the garage and when I close my door I hear a loud bang and I think something must of fell off inside my door so I open and close my door again and listen and try and hear if something did indeed fall off, I hear nothing so I open my hood to check there and what do I see. My brake booster is in two pieces :eek: literaly the two pieces had completely seperated, I drove my Chevelle for forty five minutes and forty some miles and then this happened. What in the hell would cause this to happen? Did I get a defective part? The booster and mastercylinder came from a reputable supplier that lots of Team Chevelle members use, it was one of the correct style gold boosters but did not have the Delco Moraine stamped on it, what would cause a booster that has only been used for six months just seperate in half? I thank God that I made it home and didn't kill myself or someone else, sorry for the length but I am just stunned about this. graemlins/sad.gif

Brandon, contact that supplier and let them know what happened, I would think they would send you another one and may want the split one returned.

any chance you had vapors that got into the booster and it just exploded?

That could have happened, if the filter is absent, but where did the spark come from?

I have no idea what caused this. I talked to several guys at my local cruise in and none of them have ever heard of this happening before, after it happened I stood staring at it with my jaw droped for five minutes because I could not beleive what I was looking at. I will be getting a new one ordered this week, I won't be ordering it from the same supplier this one came from. I've only ordered this and one other thing from them and they were snotty the first time and after this this is the last time, I won't mention the name of the company because I don't want to be accused of vendor bashing. I just hope it was a defective part and not the quality of all their boosters, I called the local Chevy dealer to see if they could still get them and they said it has been discontinued. I would like to be able to drive the Chevelle to the October meeting but we will see, hey J.J. hows your dads 69 coming along? It's been a while since I've seen it, any chance he can bring it to the meeeting? Thanks for the theories guys, keep them coming. I still have never heard of this happening before. :confused:

Hey Brandon
His car is just fine... Still putting things on here and there. He won't be able to make the meeting, he has to attend a wedding that day.

Hope you get all of this worked out!!!

You can get a new booster at just about any auto parts store. Quite a few of them even come with a new master cylinder. I would give the split booster the old sniff test and see if any gas got in it, I've seen that happen before, but never to the extent of it blowing in half.
I just checked the Advance Auto website and if you go there and ask for Cardone part number 5471105, they should be able to hook you up. It runs like $77 + a $30 core charge.

Originally posted by FIG:
Hope you get all of this worked out!!! You do not know how bad I want that :rolleyes: I have had the worst luck with the ole' 72 this year, I've come real close to just parking it in the garage, cover it up and let it sit for a while. My wallet has taken a bad beating this year with the Chevelle, it needs time to regroup itself.

Thanks again for the theories but I'm still stumped if it was vapors what would have ignited it? the engine was off when the booster broke.

BK72SS,

I saw this happen once before. The two halves of the booster are "lock twisted" togther. My buddy took his apart to have it powder coated. When he got the booster back and reassembled it he must not have "lock twisted" it together properly. A couple of weeks later he was driving and his booster split right down the middle along the seam.

Bill

I just installed a new Booster and it never hit the road & split in two. I went to remove the master cylinder to re-bench bleed it and when I put a wrench on the nut, "booiiiing"!!!, it split in two. Hanging from the hydraulic & vacuum lines.

It's going in for a warranty replacement tomorrow.

1969sleeper, That is exactly what happened with mine. I just took it to a shop to get it fixed and it turned out that whoever manufactured it forgot to stake the assemble locks :eek: I am still thanking god that I'm still here. You can imagine what the results would have been if I was going down the highway at 60mph and then came up on slower or stoped traffic, the end result would not be pretty. I got the same booster fixed, the locks are now staked and this was done in a press, the shop owner assures me that it is fixed and that I should not have any problems with it because it is now properly assembled, so we'll see how it turns out.

Glad to hear it was a fairly easy fix. Might I suggest you call the vendor and let them know the problem that way they can inform their supplier of the problem.

I plan on letting the vendor know what happened, I don't know if my booster was just a one in a million of not being correctly assembled or if a whole bunch of several hundred could have made it pass the inspector. I will let you guys know what happens.