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The brake components look pretty new. Are you sure its just not seeping fluid on that one cylinder and the rust you see is brake dust sticking to the fluid? or the fluid has eaten the paint in on those components.

You make want to bleed out some of the fluid and see if it looks good. Perhaps you just have one leaking cylinder. I agree that when in doubt replace it to be sure, but everything in there looks so new.

I agree the brake components look good. I would just address the wheel cylinder issue and move on. Make sure you don't have any fluid on the lining.

Well, I checked the other front brake and it appears to be ok. Upon closer inspection, you're right, the brakes look like they might have been redone not too long ago but fell victim to too much sitting around and not enough driving. The drums look new, with no ridge on them whatsoever.

I couldn't check the rears because I haven't gotten one of those heavy duty drum pullers yet. I've just started pricing them out. Looks like they go for between $100 and $150. I'm going to try and find one locally before I order one.

I wound up ordering one wheel cylinder from Kanter. When it arrives, I'll swap out my bad one and then rebuild the old one with a kit and keep it on the shelf so I have a spare that's ready to go.

So for now, I'm going to replace the one wheel cylinder, disassemble and clean the other front wheel cylinder, and completely flush the brake fluid because I don't know how old it is. That should get me back on the road safely.

Thanks for the help.

I took the wheel cylinder off and found it to be gummed up. The rubber components looked alright and were soft and pliable like they should be. I cleaned them up, honed out the wheel cylinder and put it all back together.

I completely flushed the brake fluid as the stuff in there was completely contaminated.

The brakes are firm and the car stops remarkably well for being such a large and heavy vehicle with 4 wheel drum brakes.

The other brake cylinder was pretty clean. I just took it apart, cleaned it up, and honed it out (about two passes with the hone). Put it back together and on I went.

I did notice that the front stabilizer bar bushing was just just hanging there. So I fixed that while I was under there too.

The Kanter wheel cylinder came just as I finished everything up. I'll just put it on the shelf for a spare. Like I said, I'm not sure what those rear brakes look like yet.

Thanks for the help guys.

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Here's a few more pictures of the wheel cylinder. only half was gummed up. The other side was pretty clean.

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Just a couple more pictures.

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