My 'fun' foray in to the world of Gen 2 Legacies continues! I was driving slowly around in the parking lot near my house trying to isolate what I thought was a torque bind problem when my left front and right rear brakes locked up completely! We're talking 'steel grip of death' here! The car would NOT move! I finally had to pry off the LF caliper and disconnect the line, after which both calipers released and the car rolled free. (should have removed the brake line first). What's the deal here? Are these calipers both on the same circuit or something? The car is a 95 Legacy L AWD 5 speed with ABS.

 

Oh, and the hill holder cable's disconnected, but I left the spring off. Could this be the problem?

Yeah the brakes are diagonal. Bleed the brakes.

Hill holder only operates left front brake.

 

The brakes are diagnol. It sounds like you may have a bad master cylinder, either a cup or a check valve is sticking some place.

I would do a complete system flush, straining the old fluid through a coffe filter to see if anything odd comes out.

 

 

nipper

Brakes working today after I bled the offending wheel cylinders and reconnected the hill-holder. I bled them first, they still would not unlock until after I'd reinstalled the hill holder. Not sure why the right rear was locked up if the hill holder only works on the LF, but I suspect the LF was locked because I'd taken the return spring off the hill holder and it had flopped over into the "engaged" position.

Brakes working today after I bled the offending wheel cylinders and reconnected the hill-holder. I bled them first, they still would not unlock until after I'd reinstalled the hill holder. Not sure why the right rear was locked up if the hill holder only works on the LF, but I suspect the LF was locked because I'd taken the return spring off the hill holder and it had flopped over into the "engaged" position.

Those springs are slightly important. Maybe they chaged the design to hold both, used to be just one.

 

At least you dont need a MC now.

 

 

nipper

"Oh, and the hill holder cable's disconnected, but I left the spring off. Could this be the problem?"

 

Yes, it is a contributing factor - replace the spring - I had this problem with an '86 hb that kept locking up in awkward places (I-5 freeway for one, driving it home from Portland) and finally traced the problem to the missing spring.

Doh! My SVX's don't have hill-holders. I didn't realize disconnecting it could ENGAGE the brakes!

FYI

the HH spring, cable and assm.

also function as the return spring for the

clutch fork

 

agreed it is important.

 

This works via gravity. A small check ball is held

away from blocking the output port via a detent in

the rotating shaft.

If the shaft does not rotate back to it's spring held

position, thus opening the port...

 

the brakes stay locked.

As I recall, the hill holder/parking brake holds both back wheels.

What confused me at first was the randomness of it. Before the brakes locked up completely, they sort of dragged and released randomly for a while. If they had locked up immediately after I disconnected the HH, I would have figured it out sooner. It must have been vibration/motion moving the HH lever around to random spots. It's been two days now, the HH and spring are reconnected, and the symptoms have not returned.