I don't think the pedal has changed at all and the brakes work very well. I noticed that brake fluid was leaking into the brake booster when I turned off the car, there was a hissing (I'm not sure if that's the right word) sound from the brake booster for a while. Then I stuck a stick in the brake booster and the end of the stick got wet. I've been thinking about opening the brake booster and cleaning it properly, but it would probably be best if I first got a repair kit for inside the brake booster, I don't know if they even sell those anywhere. Or I'll just try to suck the brake fluid out of the brake booster and buy a new master cylinder. The easiest option would be if there were new brake boosters for sale somewhere. Okay, good to know.
It's what I did. Sucks money-wise but I got it back within 3 weeks or so, fully rebuilt & painted. I think NPD sells the required parts in case you decide to do it yourself or have a local company do it. Are you sure it's brake fluid? I had the same problem once and it turned out to be the vacuum modulator on the FMX transmission that was leaking, which caused transmission fluid to get sucked & spread into the vacuum system.
Sounds good, you apparently live in the US, where did you send it? I asked NPD about the repair kit for my brake booster, and they replied "Sorry, but we do not support the Ford Ranchero car line. We have not researched the car line, so we are unsure if any of our products are compatible. You should check out Auto Krafters; they may be able to assist you. They carry parts for the Ranchero line. https://autokrafters.com/ Good luck with your search!!!" Apparently Auto Krafters does not ship parts outside of the US and Canada, if they even have such repair kits. Good question. My car also has an FMX gearbox and the vacuum modulator here also started leaking gearbox oil, years ago. My car does not have the vacuum actuator that releases the parking brake and the vacuum hose has only had a bolt at the end, sometimes I removed the bolt at the end of the hose and gearbox oil had spread there too. Maybe the gearbox oil could also get into the brake booster, even though it has a check valve.
I used https://www.powerbrakebooster.com/ They also sell rebuild kits, so you could try contacting them to see if they have a kit available for your booster.
Glad there were no bent valves or pushrods. I repaired a lot of stripped timing belts back in the 80's, and on rare occasion, a jumped timing chain. It was much more common to have bent valves, than not. Those were mostly inline 4's with the stripped belts and nylon-toothed cam sprocket, on the chain driven failures. Did you find the cause for the broken bolt? That's an unusual failure.
Thanks for this. I sent an email there a few days ago, but I haven't received a response yet. Even though there's a repair kit for my brake booster, the page says, "Sorry, we don't deliver to your area."
OK, so my car has a standard camshaft and the pistons are probably "normal". My car didn't have the nylon-toothed cam sprocket used in the camshaft, it had steel sprockets and that's what they put in there, new ones. The mechanic who did the work couldn't say for sure why the bolt had broken, maybe it had been tightened too tight to begin with, or it had loosened little by little and finally broke. Luckily they were able to get the broken bolt out of the camshaft.
