The Houston 04 SE

[78F350]

It wasn't really a surprise, but I was hoping it wouldn't happen. The throttle issue remained rare and intermittent. Other priorities came up, so I put off starting on the major work I had planned for the car. I kept driving and enjoying it. Then one morning on the way to work, the brakes started dragging.

I had this happen once before on one of my 1999s. A little water got into the brake booster. The moisture led to corrosion. The corrosion bound up the master cylinder. The car was still sort-of driveable. It started happening on my 1999 when I was about 500 miles from home and I quickly adapted to pulling the brake pedal back up with my toe every time it stuck. With the SE, I stopped driving it and set it aside for a couple weeks.

Today I got to work on fixing it. There's a great DIY on Renntech.org that I found the last time I had this problem. The biggest difference between the DIY and my experience is that the car they have is a right hand drive and mine was a left hand drive – The ABS unit is blocking access to replacing the booster on US cars and has to be moved slightly to make room. I recorded video of the process and I'll put it together and upload it in a day or two.

I removed the booster from my 2001 S parts car, checked it over, cleaned it a bit, and installed it. I still have to finish up with brackets and trim, then test drive. I'll pull apart the bad one for forensics and post some pics. I actually had considered pulling the booster out of the SE and checking for water in my initial recovery of the car, but that is just as much work as replacing it when it failed. I chose to be hopeful rather than preemptive. In the end, no loss other than a part removed from my parts car. I had the job about 90% done this evening when it was time to wrap up and go to work. I'll finish up tomorrow.