bad brake booster

[17caddyman]

while doing restoration work on a 1968 plymouth gtx,i purchased a master cylinder and booster assembly from jims auto parts.

bad mistake. the booster will not release vacuum and because i contacted jims auto parts after 30 days of purchase,they were glad to be off the hook and not even interested in how one of their rebuilt boosters was not working.

i recommend purchasing mopar parts anywhere but jims auto parts.

so anyone has an idea of what im missing or do i need buy another booster from someone else. thanks bobby

[keiser31]

Talk to this guy about it...Tom at tsehloff@yahoo.com.

[NTX5467]

I suspect that any "rebuilt master cylinder and booster" really came from another reman source on its way to Jim's. The people at Jim's might know more of what they are looking at than the local auto parts store employee, as to brand of cylinder and booster, individually, but you can also (I believe) readily find pictures of what is correct for your car MANY places, including the particular model year's Chrysler service manual. In this case, the expetise of ANY repro parts vendor would not be KEY to getting the correct part. Jim's might have sent the core parts for rebuilding, I suspect, rather than doing it in-house, but they could have also specified "rebuild our parts" rather than taking what the reman operator had as items ready to ship.

Inside the booster, there's a reaction valve which regulates the vacuum level inside of the booster unit. That might be an issue. IF there's a reman facility near you, you might run it by them to see if they can fix it for you, but they might want to do an exchange for more money, but then you've have a new warranty to deal with.

I'm not sure what led you to Jim's in the first place, but there are some items (which the repro/OEM vendor might out-source from other places, as reman items, which they'll then re-package with their part number and in their box) that can more easily be procurred closer to where you live. NAPA, O-Reilly's, or a few other national auto parts chain stores have access to such things, but it might take a while to get them. The cad plating on the booster might be different than what's on yours and the master cylinder's finish might be "paint" rather than "bare cast", for example. but you'd be more concerned with correct replacement part than cosmetics, per se, as cosmetics can be addressed later, if needed.

As for national reman sources, it seems that many of the auto supply vendors source the majority of their reman parts from A-1 Cardone. If you go into the O'Reilly's website and look around, note the part number. Then go to the similar NAPA (or other similar sources) and you'll possibly see the same part number as on the O'Reilly's website, but with the "-" in the number at a different location. O'Reilly's and NAPA might have different warranty specifications, plus a slightly different price, compared to each other.

In the Buick Club General Forum, there recently was a thread about vendor "return policies". It's always a good question to ask, of any potential vendor, what their stated return policy is BEFORE doing business with them. I would suspect that many vendors, who might also have car projects they might be doing AND are fully aware that you accumulate parts BEFORE they are needed for installation, might be more willing to work with you should you not have the part installed (and operational, but not corretly operational) before their stated warranty period expires . . . in a reasonable amount of time (like a few extra months--not YEARS).

In the case of reman items, you might also inquire as to how "fresh" they are, if the "shelf life monster" is not looming on their shelves.

Just some thoughts,

NTX5467