Ok, when I bought my 95 back in march my brake pedal felt too stiff to me... didn't feel how I would think a power brake system should feel.. .felt kinda like an old 70's chevy truck my dad had. So I had it in the shop gettin' some stuff done to it and asked the guy about it... he said... does it feel stiff and like you have to push a little harder at the very bottom.. kinda like it's pushing it back up at you? I said ya know... yeah it kinda does so he unhooked my ABS connector and said try it... well I think that my wanting it to be better made me think it was so once I figured out how the abs on these actually works and that it doesn't push the pedal up at ya... I went out and put the connector back in (thank GAWD that HORRIBLE orange ABS light was gone) and low and behold NOTTA... didn't make one bit of difference. So I went got me some good brake pads had the rotors turned and did the fronts. Nope. Still same. So I got to lookin' at my fluid and it looked kinda nasty so I bought me a new master cyl. and did a full bleed of the brake system... and guess what.. NOPE same thing.... so brakes do work and all just seems to me like you gotta give 'em too much *** to get it to stop. So I just kinda left it on the back burner cause I been dealing with Immigration to get my work visa extended to stay up here in Canada for a while. Well Wednesday I was coming home and truck was kinda feelin' a bit sluggish and me bein' used to the old carbureted engines loadin' up I took and dropped outta OD and ran it in Drive for a bit then ROMPED on it a few times to get some RPM outta it...(I know it's fuel injected and doesn't load up like a carbureted engine but it sure as hell made ME feel better... heheheh)... took it up to about 5k a couple times... Seemed to kinda "Wake it up" so all is well and I'm headed home and get a msg on the phone from my g'friend that she's at the park with the kids so I head over... and me still bein' a kid at heart decide I'mma pull RIGHT up to the playground and play with MY 4X4 so I pull up there and I'm stittin' for a bit talkin' to her with my foot on the brake... then drop it in park for a few min then go to leave... well when I put my foot on the brakes I felt this kinda "POP" and hear noise like air (kinda like the noise you hear when you push the brakes when the truck is just turned off) and WHAM I got GOOD power brakes.... like they're supposed to be... So me in my inquisitive state start movin' and stoppin' to see if they're gonna stiffen up... and NOPE they're fine. So I figured well maybe me wrappin' that engine up to a good RPM blew it out some and removed some stuck carbon or something of the sort. I have checked the brake booster in the past and if I remove the vacuum on it the brakes get REAL hard like they're supposed to and if I shut the truck down and pull the vacuum hose from the booster it is holding a GOOD vacuum. Well I head back down to Immigration yesterday again and brakes are workin' great... .well on my way home.. guess what.. they start doin' that hard to push crap. I'm thinking it's my damn brake booster. So are these things servicable at all... maybe something in there clogged or something worn and hangin' up or just gunked up and needs cleaned and not sliding right??? I'm pretty mechanically inclined I've just never opened up one of these things to see exactly how they work... I kinda know the theory but hell I've never seen one go bad... I do see that there's some "locks" of sort on it where if it was off I could twist and then pull it apart (kinda like a pill bottle top) Any help would be great I really don't wanna have to go hand over a wad of cash to a dealership for a new one.. Think the FIRST thing I'd do is try to find one in a junkyard and pull it apart and clean it or whatever unless there's just some common problem or known issue I can fix on mine....


Thx for all the help in advance....

 

First thing I would do is replace the check valve on the front of the booster. That 'pop' you heard could have been a sticking check valve which would either stop or severely restrict the flow of vacuum to the booster. Have you checked the vacuum source when it's acting up? Or only when it was working? The check valve is the 90* thing that actually goes into the front of the booster.

If the check valve is working properly, then booster replacement is probably in your future. The booster really isn't serviceable. By all means, grab one from the yard and see what you can do, but I really don't think it'll go back together very easily... At the very least, you'll get practice in removing it from a junker before you try it on yours.