Does a stock 4 wheel drum brake Maverick have a proportioning valve???

You said the brakes were good for a few days though. If any air was present you wouldnt have had good brakes at all. Air in a system doesnt move around and cause a problem. Its there or its not. Same spongy pedal no matter where the air is.

 

Well I do not want to count my chickens before the egs are hatched but I have been driving the Yellow 72 back and forth to work and all around town since early Sunday and the brakes are holding up and are rock hard now.

Talked to the Bro-in-Law and he didn't bench bleed the master cyl. (which is fine by me I have replace a MC before and didn't bench bleed it.

None the less I took the car back up to his house and we re-bled the brake system and the brakes came bake up and are harder then they have ever been since I have owned the car (two year on April Fool's Day)
There was definetly air in the systems because we heard it come out when we bled them. But they are back up and holding strong.

I don't know why so many people have issues with running the 4 lug, 9 inch brakes on a 6 cyl Maverick. With all the parts in good working order those brakes stop that car as good as any other car i have ever driven and even a little better than the brakes on my 96 dodge truck. That thing is a beast to stop LOL

Anyway I hope I didn't open my big mouth too soon but for now the brakes are pumped bake up and holding strong and it looks like it was just an air buble in the system that worked it's way to one of the wheel cylinders or something and now that it out the brakes stop the old 72 very nice.

 

WOW all that just to say we bled the brakes and they have been working fine for the past 3 days....LOL Damn I am long winded

 

I gotcha but it will eventually move through the system and wind up burping its way out to one of the wheel cylinder and I am 90% sure that is what happened because after re-bleeding them, they now no longer go to the floor the first time you step on them and they are now rock hard and holding strong. They are actually harder now then they were the first time I got it back from him. So in hind sight I guess when I got it back the first time and drove it for those couple of days they were actually a little bit spngy from some air in them somewhere and that air just worked it's way to a place in the system that was making the pedal go all the way to the floor but was still able to be pumped back up if you pumped them 2 or 3 times really quick.

 

Good stuff. Glad you got it working. They do stop fairly well with the little brakes everyday driving.
If you try and stop her at the end of the drag strip from 100 plus mph its a different story.
Also scary when those front drums get wet. I missed my driveway by 3 houses when I was a teenager. Blasting up the road, hit a big puddle and thats it no brakes. Hang on!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Yeah like I said I am crossing my fingers and knocking on wood that I haven't counted my chickens all in one basket...LOL or something like that...hahaha. I am seriously hoping that they don't do the same thing again, anytime soon. But with them being pumped up and holding as hard as they are for going on 3 days now I think they are prolly fixed this time.

now I have had the wet, poorly adjusted, and probably about half wore out shoes not grab and I just kept on going. once or twice back in the day. Of course i attribute that more to the fact that they probably weren't adjusted properly, I was young and stupid and the shoes probably needed replacing and I was probably driving too fast for being out in the rain, and I think just about any size drum brakes would act that way given the wrong/right circumstances. LOL

But I have had that happen. Wet drum brakes that aren't properly maintained do NOT stop a car well at all. Run through a puddle and hit the brakes hard, shortly thereafter and went zipping right past the turn-around/crossover and wound up in the median strip right quickly.. LOL

Keeping my fingers crossed. I think by the end of the week if they are still holding strong I will count the rest of my chickens and mark this one as a done deal... hahaha... Until then I will just have to have crampy crossed fingers and bloody knuckles from knocking on wood.. haha

 

The proportioning valve is mounted on the wall closest to the master cylinder. NPD sells them for Mustangs which will work. Its a hard to find part.

 

DaMadMan, I am having the same exact problem, same exact scenario, ecept one thing, I can see where brake fluid is leaking from the different points in my proportioning valve and has run down the side of the engine bay, do they go bad ??????I just want my brakes to work.

 

A '72 Maverick does not have a proportioning valve. It is possible that the pressure switch on the distribution block is leaking. I've seen that before.