Sometimes you never know. I was driving a school bus that was under 3 years old one morning. I had been stopping and starting all morning picking up kids to take to school. Hydraulic brakes had been working all morning with no sign of trouble.
After my last stop before hitting the interstate to go into town, I had to slow down to make a turn to enter the ramp for the interstate. I put my foot down on the brake pedal and it hit the floor, tried pumping it a few times with absolutley nothing. Just kept hitting the floor. Luckily the road also went straight through and I had the right of way. Started gearing the beast down and using the hand brake to slow down.
I had another bus come out, took mine in and found the master cylinder was full of fluid, but no sign of a brakes. I had to install a new master cylinder to get brakes again. ( I was the fleet mechanic at the time for the school)
So you never know, even with the best of checkups and everything working, things can happen without any warning. I was lucky that morning that there wasn't any traffic to contend with, and I had an avenue to take the bus and safely slow down and stop. But quite a scary feeling when you know you have 25 kids on board and suddenly there are no brakes. This was a 1976 IH 48 passenger bus in 1979.
Last edited by Roy Rodgers; 11/10/2008 11:39 PM.
