When it rains it pours.....brake fluid.

Dustin's 65 El Camino. Disc/Disc. CPP Combi Valve. 8" booster. Corvette style master cylinder.

Decided before I turned my son loose with the car we would try some panic stops. And it didnt work. In fact I was only able to lock up the front right (5" bicycle tires) tire once. Yikes!!!! The pedal seems stiff with little or no brake. We have good vacuum (added vacuum pump). I proceed to check for air in lines. Starting at rear I notice the caliper had a slight leak at the shaft (Cadillac Seville calipers with ebrake). I happened to have a spare and replaced. Bled caliper until all air was gone and my son had good pedal. Then I notice all of a sudden it sprung a leak in the weep hole in the combi valve (for the rear brake lines). I still have good pressure to the rear brakes but realize that with that leak the resevoir will be empty in no time. After disassembly, the front valve is seperate from the rear valve. I imagine it has a bad o-ring on the valve assembly allowing fluid to pass to weep hole. Could master cylinder build to much pressure to rear? The car has sat for extended periods of time but was moved in and out of the shop so its not like it sat for ever. Or could this be our DOT 4 mistake just now coming back to haunt us as a few folks mentioned quite some time back?

Is it worth my time trying to replace the o-rings on the rear valve (combi) or should I just buy a new one? It doesnt appear to be like a shuttle valve, where one valve would affect the other so I dont feel like a reset is necessary like the Ford units?

I was thinking I may just start from scratch and buy a whole new master/booster/combi valve kit from CPP or somewhere. Really dont want to spend the money. Not sure if my trouble is the valve or the master cylinder. Absolutely bummed about this whole mess. We finally get the car painted and now he cant drive it. I miss my 36!

Any thoughts?

David