I've been having some issues with my brakes lately, and I'm pretty sure that the factory brake booster and master cylinder, which are now 15 years old and have 221,000 miles on them, are about ready to be replaced. My question is whether these can be replaced as an assembly, or if they have to be individually removed and installed.

Additionally, does anybody have a good howto on replacing these 2 parts for a 1998 half ton w/o hydroboost? Is there anything I should be wary of when doing this work?

Any tips or suggestions would be welcome at this point.

Thanks!

 

The booster is pretty straight forward on the replacement. If your booster is bad, the pedal will be so hard to mash down, you will have difficulty stopping. This can also be cause by a vacuum leak in the hose going to the booster.

On the MC, you will need to bench purge the air out of it before installation. There is probably online instructions for this.

I would do the installations separately, but others may see an advantage of doing them as a unit.

If you are not familiar with MC work, since you are in the DFW area, I would contact Patman, a member here, and let him do the work. He is very reasonable and an excellent mechanic.