Replace Powemaster Brakes with Regular Brakes

I recently had the Powermaster Brakes fail on my 86 Caprice Wagon. (which was terrifying!) I used a conversion kit sold by Karp's Brake Service to switch to regular brakes since they no longer sell the pump that failed on my Powermaster and was very pleased with results. Thought I'd share.

jbracciante wrote:

I recently had the Powermaster Brakes fail on my 86 Caprice Wagon. (which was terrifying!) I used a conversion kit sold by Karp's Brake Service to switch to regular brakes since they no longer sell the pump that failed on my Powermaster and was very pleased with results. Thought I'd share.

Powermaster? Is that a hydroboost system like the Buick Grand National used? Interesting.

Yup exact same system as the Grand National, it was also an option on 86 and 87 B-body wagons for some reason.

jbracciante wrote:

Yup exact same system as the Grand National, it was also an option on 86 and 87 B-body wagons for some reason.

I'm surprised with all the Grand National love that the parts are not reproduced. Interesting.

There are some Grand National boutiques that rebuild the ENTIRE Powermaster brake system, but individual parts are no longer produced. The cost for a rebuild is steep (About $850 plus a core charge) while the conversions kit sold by Karp's is around $400 shipped. You can sell a broken Powermaster system for around $150 (which is what I'm doing with mine) to the Grand National fanatics who insist on keeping everything original.