I have noticed when I got the car from my uncle, I decided to put new pads on the car. The only side that was wore down was one of the rear ones.

I went ahead and had all 4 rotors turned and new pads on the calipers. But it seems like my brakes don't work as good as they should. So I check my disks again and I can still see the grooves on 3 disks from when they were turned about 5000 miles ago. I have bled all the calipers and even put it on jack stands and spun the wheels by hand and had somebody step on the brake pedal and they stop, but I don't think they are getting the full pressure from the brake pedal. So basically I have 1 caliper in the rear of the car doing most of the stopping. I am looking at all new calipers on Ebay right now, but is this my problem?

 

Can you be more specific about the problem. Hard or soft pedal, etc.

 

pedal is kind of hard I guess. I just know you have to really lay on it to stop the car.

 

A 'hard pedal" is indicative of a failing power booster. It should not take a lot of effort on the pedal to stop the car quickly if the power booster is working right. Do you hear any sounds coming from the booster when you press on the pedal? While booster problems are not that common, it does happen and the cure is to replace it.

Turning the rotors won't specifically help with stopping "power" or pedal feel. Machining the rotor face insures that there will be a smooth surface for the new pads to grip, transfer pad material to the rotor and to true the rotor. For general street use, you can turn rotors once

But most replacement rotors do not have a lot of extra surface material to get rid of any deep grooves. The FSM even recommends not turning rotors at all due to the lack of material. If you have grooves left after they had been turned, I would simply toss the rotors and get new ones. They aren't terribly expensive (compared to the cost of calipers).

Another problem could be the flexible brake line hoses. If they are original or even 10 years old or so, it's time to replace them. Line pressure in old hoses can cause expansion and effectively reduce the line pressure to the caliper.

If the fluid has not been flushed in the last 2 or 3 years, you should also do a complete flush of the fluid using a good quality DOT3 fluid. With only one pad showing excessive wear, you may have a restriction in the lines from dirt or debris.

 

I put new steel brake lines on the car when I got it, so I know the lines aren't expanding. I am going to try and flush the system with new oil and see what happens. I don't hear any sounds from the brake booster when the pedal is pushed.

 

My '87 has gone through 2 brake boosters in 5 years/40k miles.

 

I have an 86, and for years, if I wanted to stop really fast to avoid some moron slamming on his brakes in front of me, I was to use 2 feet on the brake pedal.
I put new rotors on, changed pads 3 different times to different compositions, etc.
I finally had to change the booster when it went bad, and I thought ahah! now I will get some brake action since I was too cheap to throw money at a booster needlessly without any corroborating information that that was reallly going to fix the problem.
It did nothing except to fix a leaking booster.
I put C5 brakes on it, and a world of difference!!!
The pedal effort is the same since I have not changed the booster or master cylinder, but the car just stops quicker for the same effort.
What originally happened was, I wanted new wheels. Every time I want something new, there is always a subsequent expense to go along with it.
This time, I went from 16 inch wheels, to 17" and 18" wheels. I got 2001 thinspokes, and you could see the brakes totally unhindered.
The front discs are 1/2 inch bigger in diameter than the rear!!! I mean they were like the same size!!!!
Well, you know the engineers couldn't let the rears have as much stopping power as the fronts, so they limited the rear pressure to allow the fronts to exert 60% more stopping power than the rears.
That means that the rear pads essentially polish the rotors, and really don't contribute anything to the stopping of the car.
Since I had 17" front wheels, I could upgrade to bigger brakes. The cheapest upgrade with the biggest bang was to go to C5 brakes.
I used stock C5 front rotors, C5 calipers and C5 pads, and C5 hoses.
The car stops as you would expect a corvette to stop.
There was nothing wrong with my brakes, just that they didn't have enough clamping force on the rotors, and the leverage on the discs wasn't enough because the disc diameter was too small.
anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.