bought a 1972 28' Barth ranger limited Saturday and seems like the right front caliper is locking up severely. had to park it after about 4 miles. had it towed the rest of the way home. going to have a look this weekend. anybody been through this. wondering about ordering parts from rockauto but unsure of what chev model I use; C30 truck? the 402 needs a tune up and will change all fluids. could it be a bad flex line on the brakes? thanks, I'm a newbie here. apperciat6e any good advice. thx, john.

HERE are a few pages for your reading pleasure. Yes the old brake hoses can act as a back flow preventor for fluid. This will cause the brakes to lock up!

Hello,
I'm still going through the brakes on my 73, 25 footer. I picked my coach up, back in October, 750 miles away from home. The first thing I noticed was I had no parking brake. Then 100 miles down the road I discovered that the right front caliper was frozen open. It was stopping, just not very good. I drove on, which I would not suggest anyone do, nor will I ever do again. The rest of the trip was pretty much uneventful, except for a near miss with pickup truck load of goats just south of Louisville. Upon inspection at arrival I discovered that I also had 2 leaking rear wheel cylinders and no fluid in the reservoir. Needless to say, the Barth was in need of a little brake work. First go around I turned the rotors, replaced the rubber lines, master cylinder, calipers, rear drums, shoes, wheel cylinders, hardware, parking brake cables, and anything else I could see. A word of advice is inspect and replace anything suspect the first time. Dig deep. Just because you can't see it does not make it good. I was confident that everything was good to go until last Saturday. I had a starter issue, so when I removed the starter I "bumped" one of the steel lines coming from the front booster. I immediately noticed fluid dripping. Upon close inspection, it appeared that the lines running along the frame channels were almost completely rusted through in many places that couldn't be seen without getting right up there with them. I pulled out all of the steel lines last night. This was a major disaster waiting to happen. I do not see how these things were holding any pressure. Anyhow, I've got a roll of 1/4" brake line, a sack full of fittings, and a borrowed inverted flare tool. This time I am going to replace every single inch of line.

Good luck with the 72'. I would imagine that the components are the same as are on my 73' P30 Chevy coach. I think that the 71's thru 73's are the transition years for GM on the 1 ton brake set up. Rotors are impossible to find as are rear drums. I was lucky as my rotors had one last turn. I would have replaced them but there was none available, that I could find, locally or on the internet. The rear drums were a different story. One bad and one good. I did a bit of machining and was able to use new later model drums with the stock brake shoes and hardware. Right now I'm in to the job around 50 hours not counting research and parts hunting. I don't plan on totaling the $'s. I hope I'm not sounding discouraging here because that' not my intention. If I can be of any assistance please send me a PM and I'll try to help.
Mark

Mark

Thanks for the feedback on the early brake systems. You may have just become the local expert on the early GM stuff! I had heard the 16 inch drums were hard to find. When you finish your job let us know and document the clever changes you made.

My 86 has discs all around and parts are fairly easy to find. I have replaced all the lines and would recommend that to any owner of an early coach.

I still have a few pieces of steel fuel line to replace. They also tend to rust along the frame as you have seen.

Parts and labor and ain't cheap, but peace of mind having good brakes is priceless.

Thanks for the info. bought a 12 ton bottle jack today. i'll take a look this weekend. did title and reg. today too. wife's been cleaning it out. thanks, john.

In the past, somewhere over 5 years ago, I had the left front caliper stick. Had been doing stop and go in a construcion zone and once thru it the Barth did not want to get up to cruise. Pulled off at the next exit and jacked up the front axle with a small bottle jack I carry. Could not turn the left front wheel.

Pushed the seals back and srayed with WD40. Let it sit and then using a screw driver pried the pistons back in. Pushed the brake pedal and then dribbled synthtic oil on the pistons and pried them back again and they started working. Pushed the seals back in place and off they went. Never changed the caliper (just remembered it) and it has worked fine now for 5+ years.

poured a concrete RV pad to park/work on the Barth. from what I can tell I will replace the flex lines and see what I have for brakes. been doing some tinkering to detail, clean and fix the rig up. anybody ever wash/clean the filter material at the roof fan vent, looks like a heavy smoker was in the thing at one time. its some type of fabric. pulled the acrylic grab handle by the door to replace light bulb. nice porch light. thx, john.