Repair-It

Great success! Well, mostly. The brake light is still on, but IIRC it took a few driving cycles last time before it went off because fancy Fleetwood. I was able to bleed the rears and also re-bled the fronts so there should be no air in the system.

Lets recap. The proportioning valve shuttle switch tripped when the rear axle line blew months ago. Since then, something has not been right and the rear brakes wouldn't bleed correctly. Other symptoms were the rear shoes not disengaging and wearing out prematurely. After shoe replacement, the problem was wore until the shoes wore a bit.

I then reassembled the proportioning valve from the Caprice (poorly) and installed it. That fixed the shuttle switch issue, but introduced another problem where the seal for the rear feed in the proportioning valve didn't fit correctly resulting in no fluid flow. After swapping the seal in from the original FW proportioning valve everything bleeds fine and the pedal (and brakes in general) feel correct.

I'll update when the light goes off. Or when I convert to rear discs...

I don't think that light is controlled by the BCM...

kevm14 wrote:I don't think that light is controlled by the BCM...

I tested the switch and it worked as expected: continuity when depressed (shuttle switch normal), no continuity when released (shuttle switch tripped). Could be a wiring issue.

I guess you could short the harness and see if the light reacts.

kevm14 wrote:I guess you could short the harness and see if the light reacts.

Nothing. Although since I disconnected it to short the harness, the TCS/ABS lights are back on. They should go away next time I start it with the harness connected.

Since the brakes are now working properly and the only problem is the light, I suppose that could now be related to a faulty E-Brake switch. I'll check that out later.

Fixed! The issue was the e-brake pedal wasn't completely released. Maybe half an inch off of all the way up. The does have a fancy vacuum-release e-brake, so that is something.

Not sure how long this has been a problem. May have happened during the last inspection (right before the rear line blew). Regardless, there are now no lights on (except "Pass Key Fault") and the brakes work correctly. Which is good because it is now my only road-worthy car...