[DeTomaso] Pantera - Brakes - Proportioning Valve

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/9/11 7 50 6, rickrows at hotmail.com writes:


> What about the proportioning valve?    Remove, gut, leave as is?
> 

Leave as-is.   Gutting or removing it will unbalance your braking system, 
making the front brakes overly sensitive.   For gentle driving it feels like 
an improvement, because the car stops with less pedal effort.   But if you 
seriously need to stop, now your front brakes lock prematurely and your rear 
brakes (which do a higher-than-normal amount of the car's overall braking 
due to the rearward weight bias) do little at all.

Nobody else has mentioned that your power brake booster could be shot (or 
not getting proper vacuum).   The Pantera relies on power assist for proper 
braking; if that part of the system takes a dump, your leg doesn't have 
enough mechanical advantage to let the stock master cylinder lock the calipers.

It's difficult to pinpoint the source of your problem from a distance, and 
it's annoying to spend money replacing a component, only to learn that it 
wasn't the offending one. :<(

Mike