where is my brake leak?

[red89yj]

my gt has 157K on it and in the month that ive had it, i have had to top off the brake fluid 3x. today i noticed that the brake idiot light is coming on when im slowing to a stop, but once im stopped i pump the brakes and the light doesnt come back.

I also noticed that when i downshift into 2nd from 4th, it will come on briefly, which seems odd to me.

last time this happened, i topped off the brake res. and now its doing it again and the fluid is about 3/4 full. everything looks dry under the hood.



on a GT, (all brake equipment is stock as of now) where are the most common areas for leaks in the brake system. Im going to be doing new ebrake cables next weekend and while im under there I'll take care of whatever needs to be done.

 

[AznStanger3v]

when you walk outside in the morning, do you see any puddles under the car?? there really isnt a set point that the SNs leak from. you are going to have to get dirty and crawl under the car.

 

[1TallMF]

Check your front and rear calipers, and all flex lines. I'm gonna bet its a caliper. The steel lines on our cars don't seem to rust, or at least I've never seen them rust on a mustang.

 

[bill302]

if the caliper(s) are leaking the inside side wall of the tire(s) looking form under the car at the tire sidewall will be wet with brake fluid.

 

[go-stang5.0]

YEa chech each wheel for wetness in the inner diameter of the wheel. Also, the light coming on/off randomly is because when the MC gets low enough, the sloshing fluid from jerky driving or coming to a stop can trip the light on and off. Eventually if fluid level gets low enough, the light will just stay on.

 

[badstang123]

I'm just going to go off my experience as a possibility. A while back I was going pretty damn fast and hit a real hard dip in the road while maintaining some pretty serious speed. The rear suspension compressed so much that the flange off the exhaust right behind the rear axles housing clipped the line that runs along the back of the axles. It put a dented and put a small crack in the line that eventually left me pumping my brakes to get some stopping power back.

I doubt your concern is similar, but I thought I'd share since it did happen to me. Best of luck to you in finding the problem
- Justin

 

[red89yj]

i do have a lot of raised RR crossings around here that I never paid attention to when i was going airborne in my wrangler- I wonder if something got clipped while going over them in the stang (not airborne, but "oh ****, i forgot that was that high" ) ill take a look over the weekend and just keep it full of fluid now.