suddenly loose steering and dead brakes (Page 2/4) cartercarbaficionado MAY 06, 04:22 PM quote Originally posted by olejoedad: It sounds like it's time to take it off the road until it's not a hazard to everyone else. Get the problems fixed! it is. I finished my drive home and parked it cartercarbaficionado MAY 06, 04:23 PM quote Originally posted by 1985 Fiero GT: For 88, it could be a steering rag joint, some had them some didn't, I think Rodney makes a replacement, when it goes bad, it will massively increase free play, but can be sporadic depending on the force used, and the position it is in. Your brakes definitely sound like a dead booster or something along the vacuum line for it will check the rag joint and steering ujoints on the column yeah I think the booster is dead, I'll grab a few used ones soon cartercarbaficionado MAY 06, 04:28 PM quote Originally posted by theogre: [QUOTE]Originally posted by cartercarbaficionado: driving the 88 after its key snapped off in my hand...yay? anyways before and after it's replacement I noticed alot more steering play than it had last time I drove it ~1/4 turn either way and it's really trying to go into the other lane on every bump so it's going up on stands tommorrow and I'm gonna look for obvious problems though I know the tilt column probably has a worn bushing due to it pivoting to the bottom left when any force is applied but I'm hoping that isn't enough to cause me issues. Sudden addition on my way home from a stop I had to make to look the car over is that it's not being consistent, it's oversteering or not doing much at all at random and doesn't matter which way I turn but left turns seem to make this worse. ironically the only side with a working turn signal 2nd issue has been on and off for awhile and that's under any braking the pedal will suddenly feel like I dont have a brake booster mind you that's not because I'm going deeper into the pedal stroke but feels like my booster just loses all vaccum at random. normally a broken booster would cause the brakes go near the floor or cause the engine to run poorly right? for awhile I just assumed this was normal because it wasn't so bad but today the pedal just didn't move at all with any amount of force until I downshifting twice bringing revs to 4500 and then the pedal had a slight effect Steering play = Do Not Drive The Car! Can be any thing & likely more then 1 thing wrong w/ the steering. See https://web.archive.org/web...~fierocave/steer.htm "normally a broken booster would cause the brakes go near the floor or cause the engine to run poorly right?" Bad Booster Will Never "floor the pedal" Nor will Not make engine problems most times more so w/ "hard pedal" you can't push. Booster or line w/ big vac leak problem(s) can make Engine Idle High to kill the engine when 3/8" or 1/2" vac line fails. (87-88 Fiero has 1/2" booster vac line.) Bad booster often won't make a big vac leak & many times won't cause high idle too. Example: often a "dead" booster failed 1 of 2 diaphragms & cause harder pedal all the time but leak little vacuum when it happens. your problem... The vac line to the booster or booster itself can "Jam"/"Plug" & give very hard pedal because low/no vacuum getting thru. Or has vacuum but control valve in the booster is bad or full of crap blocking operation. when intermittent, look in back for bad motor/trans mounts & related parts letting engine to move pulling/pinching wires hose etc. But an Iffy MC can do the same because how it's made. Example: Quick take up section must "vent" to the tank once done its job. if can't = hard pedal. See https://web.archive.org/web...ierocave/brakes4.htm [/QUOTE] no a bad booster can cause the pedal to go to the floor as my s10 blazer had its pedal do that until I replaced it and suddenly the pedal didn't go almost all the way down anymore. usually it's the seal between chambers failing to cause that, honestly probably gonna go through the whole system since I'm not sure what has and hasn't been done 82-T/A [At Work] MAY 06, 04:28 PM quote Originally posted by 1985 Fiero GT: I think his specific symptoms are not brake fade, and more the booster. As for the difference in the 88 brakes, they are vented front and rear, which would be even more effective at cooling then drilled/slotted rotors. I live in a place where the main roads are equivalent to backroads in most other places, windy enough to feel like an autocross course, with trees right up to the road in many places, the speed limits here are also more of a dare then a limit, I drive hard (nowhere near as hard as you haha) and have fun, but never exceed the speed limit, drive more like autocross then like on a drag strip with dozens of traffic lights. I took my grandma for a ride yesterday, I hit 40km/h at the end of first gear, and she was like "slow down slow down, what's the speed limit here" it's 60 km/h, and it took a few seconds for her to realize that yes, we were going fairly slowly, but the snappy acceleration and being in such a small low car (she had only driven a Nissan Sentra for the last few years) made her think we were speeding way over the limit, in first gear haha. Yeah, I've never had an 88... I didn't know they were vented. It makes sense why GM went that way then, vastly superior design. ... and to be clear. I absolutely do not drive like that now. That was 30+ years ago. I rarely drive at all. I can't even remember the last time I even went 80 on the highway. cartercarbaficionado MAY 06, 04:31 PM quote Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: On this... when you say push hard enough... can you go into more detail? You were saying the brakes are rock hard (which is good), but are you saying that the car just doesn't brake after stop and go traffic? Meaning that no matter how hard you push... it takes forever for the brakes to actually stop? As long as the pedal itself "feels the same" (meaning that it's not going to the floor with little effort), then this could be "brake fade." I get a lot of flack for this, but when I was younger, I drove my Fiero HARD. Like, flooring it at every light, and slamming the brakes before every light I missed. The brakes would heat up fiercely to the point where I'd see smoke coming from both front wheels when I'd stop after some seriously spirited driving. This is because the brakes glaze over, and the brake feeling I would get is as exactly as you described. This is known as "brake fade," which is essentially the inability to brake because the surface area doesn't really have any "gripping" power, no matter how hard you push down on the brakes. There's so much heat that the rotors become slick to the point where they cannot grip and the pads effectively just slide. Now, if you're NOT driving like a maniac, then it's possible your brakes are leaking and brake fluid might be getting on the rotor (generally unlikely). And if this was the case, it would probably be 1 rotor, and not both at the same time... in which case the car would pitch violently to one side when you brake. I think you have brake fade... In my opinion, with that kind of aggressive driving, the short-term fix is to have the rotors turned (they're now "glazed") and replace the pads... (and change out fluid while you're at it). But honestly... the real fix for this is to get a pair of cross-drilled and slotted front rotors. You really only need them for the front. You can do the back too... but it would really only be for looks as the back really doesn't need them. The brakes on the Fiero, while decent, are sub-par for seriously aggressive driving, and they will glaze over if you do it with some regularity. With OEM-sized cross-drilled and slotted rotors, it allows the brakes to much more easily cool off and prevents glazing of the rotors. They should cost only a little bit more than non-cross drilled and slotted rotors. You have an 88, so it's a little bit harder to find... but that will solve that problem. Just to put it into comparison... I had to buy new rotors and pads every year for three years in a row... and when I eventually went with cross-drilled rotors... those lasted for several years before I eventually replaced them to go to a much bigger brake kit. i mean they could be glazed but they ain't mirrors so it's unlikely especially since the pedal feels like it just hits a wall, I've never actually been able to lock these up so there is a definite issue and it might just be that my pads suck and the calipers are stuck 1985 Fiero GT MAY 06, 05:54 PM quote Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: Yeah, I've never had an 88... I didn't know they were vented. It makes sense why GM went that way then, vastly superior design. ... and to be clear. I absolutely do not drive like that now. That was 30+ years ago. I rarely drive at all. I can't even remember the last time I even went 80 on the highway. Yeah, I know, when I compare myself to you it's to you when you were my age haha. 82-T/A [At Work] MAY 06, 06:54 PM quote Originally posted by 1985 Fiero GT: Yeah, I know, when I compare myself to you it's to you when you were my age haha. Dude... it's amazing I'm still alive. I remember taking my 1985 Fiero GT 4-Speed on an on-ramp, racing a 3rd Gen RX-7. It was a two-lane off/on-ramp... Interstate I-95 to Interstate 5-95 West-bound. We were both flooring it... I had all four wheels squealing in my 85 GT... like... literally all 4 wheels were at their adhesion limits. I have no idea how fast I was going because the Speedo only goes to 85 in that car. But I was in fourth gear and flooring it... and being really ginger with the steering wheel so I didn't lose complete control. As we came around the apex of the off-ramp, I edged out the RX-7. He was trying, certainly... and then as soon as we hit the straight-away... he gunned it and pulled away slowly. There were at least twice that I was going over 120 miles an hour (highest the speedometer went) on my 1987 Fiero SE / V6 and was pulled over by the police. One was early in the morning on Powerline Rd out in an area of South Florida that had NOTHING... just a long stretch, and another late at night in a town called Davie, Florida. Both times... I remember having the gas pedal floored, with at least ~500rpms left on the tachometer before it got to the yellow, and the speedometer was past the 120 mark at maybe the 125 to possibly what would be 130? I don't know. I could have killed someone, or several people, let alone myself. Of course, I didn't consider that back then... I was just self-absorbed and being an idiot. Like, I say this now... but I was a complete idiot at that age. This all had to have been from 1996-2000 (aged 18-22), as I bought a Pontiac Grand Am SE back in late 2000 after I blew the motor in my Fiero. I started driving a lot more calm then, got married, etc. When my daughter was born, it was like a light switch... I think I hit 90 once just to pass someone on the highway, but other than that, I drive the speed limit... ESPECIALLY on local roads. Like, it says 25... I'm going 23. It says 45, I'm doing 40. Again. cartercarbaficionado MAY 06, 09:28 PM yeah got it all apart and it's getting some new bits soon. seems my main issue is some loose ball joints but after putting grease in them they are night and day different and will be good enough to get the car to its storage lot a few miles away. then I'm ordering joints from either fiero store or QA1 for peace of mind and I'm pretty much just gonna fully rebuild the suspension,as it turns out my booster is getting full vaccumm so it's just dead and will be getting replaced cartercarbaficionado MAY 07, 12:55 AM alright after a violent spirited test drive I can say the brakes are working properly after I unplugged the booster and let it sit open for awhile. car has its hot heat back which means the gauge is lying to me again about being halfway between 40 and the middle but it's holding there and has all its power back for the first time in months and is letting it spin tires through corners and such. not sure what I did and the front end is much much better but definitely is getting rebuilt fully very very soon with the best parts money can buy for it cartercarbaficionado MAY 07, 01:31 AM my starter just locked up and smoked out :/. I litterally can't get a break