PJssc400

Not a typical Oregon day. 75 degrees (to us feels like 80 after so much rain), clear, perfect in all respects. My friend and I are on our way out of the Haggen's parking lot after grabbing some Carl's Jr., and I decide to turn the overdrive off on my SC4, and turn on the power ect-s, just in the interest of a nice launch after a short red light. We pull up and stop, a slight squeal from the brakes and the only sound is the low rumble of the V8. The light turns green, and I stomp the pedal. Two seconds later we're doing 35 and climbing up to 60. I see traffic not far ahead and decide to end this run, but the brake suddenly feels stiff and unresponsive, like it is when the car is off, and I am forced to put all my weight on it. "The brake isn't working" I say. Thankfully, there is enough stopping power left for us to slowly decelerate and pull off the road near a stop light. We get out and check the brake fluid. All there. There isn't any hint that it was leaking in the first place; our path is dry. We decide to park in the nearby community college lot, and we open the hood again with the engine running. Up near the front window, seeming to come from just behind the engine head, there is a piercing hiss. The engine is idling very low, and eratically, bouncing from about 500 down to 3, over and over. It still does this a half hour later. We decide to leave and fix it later.

There have been no hints of anything major happening to the car since I got it. The only thing I can thinbk of that's changed is that the engine started to run slightly rougher about a month ago, and the transmission was making a bit more noise when it clunked into gear. Nothing huge though. Just a small clunk. It's got 168000 miles.

I'm probably going to get an answer as to the cause of this through a mechanic fairly quickly...but I just thought I'd share the story. Thanks all. Later.

djl

Check your brake booster vacuum hose, sounds like you have a leak.

Good luck,

DJL

PJssc400

Is this easy to repair? How much?

Thanks for the quick response.

-- Justin

djl

Follow the hissing noise you are hearing to located the root cause of the problem. It could be as simple as a disconnected hose right at the booster, this will cause complete loss of power assist to the brakes and inconsistent engine idle.

DJL

SupraCoup3

I had the same EXACT problem -- some monkey at the an autobody shop pulled it halfway off... it popped off, I lost power brakes, heard a loud hiss (it's actually a loud sucking...). If anyone here knows what a rotary is (or a traffic circle...) imagine losing your power brakes in that. If you don't know what a rotary is, count yourself as blessed -- wanna find out who the stupidest drivers are? Setup a chair by a rotary, that's where the stupid people really blossom.


Anyhow

pop your hood, look at the upper righthand corner of your engine bay, there should be a black clyindrical thing there with hoses going into and out of it, that's your ho right there. (That black thing-a-majig is your power booster)

Use some extra screwdriver tightening hose clamps on it, two for good measure. I did that two years ago and haven't had a problem since.


Oh yeah... get a power-flush of your tranny -- I should show off some pics of my old fluid... it looks like black sludge. That was after I changed out nearly 4 quarts of it too.


John