I heard good things about their rebuilt axles and I used them in my w123. The boots look great, but as for the joints time will tell. You are the 3rd person I've heard warning about Cardone, I'll be careful with this brand. My bad experiences came from buying Dorman products. I bought Dorman 3 times and none of them fit. So no more Dorman for me. I just thought if they can't make simple things that we can see such as size correctly how can they make things we can not see correctly.

Installed a new Pierburg vacuum pump. Brake boost a little better than old vacuum pump. Vacuum measures a little stronger. Still runs out of brake boost if I pump the brakes x 3. So I think it is not l likely that the seal thickness is the problem.

Changed to Cardone rebuilt booster. Maybe a minimally worse than original


We can all now conclude that Cardone boosters are junk. I returned the remanufactured Cardone and put a used booster(came off of 85 w126) n my problem is 90% fixed(after about 6 consecutive brakes the pedal becomes a little hard, but vacuum is regained after a few seconds).

i have added a vacuum canister from a volvo 240 into the leaf_catcher/fire_trough in my w126 to get a little more time worth of vacuum. i have plans for a 12v setup i will document and share once it's installed.

__________________
1982 300sd from craigslist $800 greased on one tank with NO CONVERSION in the Hot Texas Sun. (currently dead & awaiting engine damage investigation and/or longblock swap)
new daily: '03 vw 5speed jetta tdi wagon. bagged&chipped

I just had my 400,000 mile 300SD do this.
After a long highway run I get power brakes for like one stop (two or three presses).
Then hard brake pedal.

After reading this thread my first stop was take out the vacuum pump check valve.

Nothing inside, wide open - my question is, WHERE DO THE MISSING PARTS GO ?

I am afraid to hear the answer, because inside the pump is the only place to go.

It made me think that if I were to open the front of the vacuum pump I might find some small debris
that could be removed before further damage.

I did not do this, but headed off to the junkyard and pulled the only three
vacuum check valves they had.

One was missing the guts, the other two had the parts inside like the
pictures in this post.

So I come home with two check valves.
One of them seems to operate as expected with me blowing through it
so that is the one I put in.

Drove the car about two miles, up to 50mph, got feeble brake response and
car does not shut off.

Tuesday will be my 75 mile commute , lets see if the check valve and vacuum kicks in.

I have not tested vacuum at any ports yet, taking it one step at a time.

If I eventually need a vacuum pump, disappointed. Either a kit for $150usd
or a pump for $300usd.
Seems kinda steep, at least for the rebuild kit.

Do these pumps go out often ? (of course I am at 400,000 miles).

The other valve, I sprayed WD40, cleaned it up, and it looks really
good and behaves like the other one when I blow through it.
Air is allowed to flow from small end to large end, air is blocked
from large end through small end.

Any advice on removing that debris , for preventative failures sake ?

Any luck with junkyard pumps ? The cars I got my parts from said
250,000 miles on ODO, and who knows if they worked.

__________________
80 300D 340K Owned 30 yrs
83 300SD 440K Owned 9 yrs - Daily Driver 150mi/day
02 Z71 Suburban 117,000
15 Toyota Prius 2600 miles
00 Harley Sportster 24k
09 Yamaha R6
03 Ninja 250