You need to do the whole system. It's not an option. I'm one of the cheapest guys around here and if I say it isn't an option, it isn't an option. If the parts are okay, you can salvage shoes, drums, springs, and possibly the rubber hoses. But the wheel cylinders and master cylinder have to be replaced. I think you can do it for a buck fifty and a few pennies.

Other than wearing them out, the death of brakes is not using them. The wheel cylinders are contracted in their bores. The cast iron starts to rust quickly, and without the seals cleaning the surfaces on a regular basis, the corrosion and dirt get under/between the wheel cylinder seals/pistions. It grinds the rubber up and presto! One learns they call them idiot lights.

If you drive it every day, you can get 10 to 20 years on wheel cylinders. 6 months to a year of sitting can bring on the death of the hydralic system. (Remember what I said, even before I unlocked the door after the car sitting for 6 years? The brakes are going to be toast. I might be able to drive it home before they fail. But when I get it home, the frist thing I have to do to the car before even thinking about driving it is rebuild the hydralic system--yeah, got it home---on a roll back.)

You don't know how much sitting that the car did when it was with the previous owner, so the rebuild is mandatory maintainance.

We would probally be better off doing the work in your HHHUUUUGGGGGGEEEE garage. First, because we can make it an ongoing project. Second, because I don't have to play jockey with vehicles. My other car is in the driveway, and my company truck occupies the one parking space in front of my house. Third, because my garage is ill suited for doing any type of automotive repair.

As you can see in the picture, the width of the garage door is about the width of the car area in the garage.



I have been super careful while working because I had predicted the hazard--long before I started the job. Regardless, I have put a bf scratch in the back of the right quarter while jocking a fender around. (I have the fenders, hood, valance, assorted peices in my den so that I don't have to try to work around them.)

Also when working at your house: The fine meals that your wife fixes for me has nothing to do with it--really!