We wish we would have known about Baer Brakes’ Push Rod Depth Gauge tool a long time ago. We have encounter multiple brake systems where the pushrod on the brake booster was not fully depressing the master cylinder or was trying to depress it too far. As you can imagine, this can cause some issues and hair loss.

The biggest issue is when your brake master cylinder is not being fully depressed, you are not going to have very strong braking. Especially when your front port is the front brakes, which is responsible for 70-80% of your stopping power. This can make braking inconsistent and not very safe.

On the other hand, if the push rod on the brake booster is too long and tries to over press the master cylinder you could blow out seals or have brakes that are constantly dragging. When the push rod from the brake booster is too long, at a rest the push rod will be engaging the brakes although you are not trying to.

Then when you go to press the brakes they will come on quick and potentially could damage seals, pistons and other parts from pushing the master cylinder piston too far.

Thankfully Baer Brakes offers a simple tool that can help you measure and make sure you have the correct length. If we would of had this tool years ago, we would have saved a lot of time and headaches. You might think, well I am never doing a custom brake conversion, I will never need to measure my brake push rod length.

The funny thing is, we have had more issues with factory style aftermarket replacement boosters and master cylinders than we have had with our custom brake kits. There are a lot of variations in the quality of some after market brake parts and double checking the push rod length is necessary.

So even though  you bought a direct replacement brake booster, you should measure the push rod length to make sure everything is working correctly. We bet one of you reading this right now needs to measure your push rod length. The Baer Brakes’ video below will show you how easy it is to use their Push Rod Depth Gauge tool.