912 Brake Problem, sticky pedal & limited braking

[Scorp965]

I recently purchased a 912 off of eBay with the knowledge "the brakes may need to be bled" - it arrived with the following symptoms:

When you press the brake pedal it has quite a bit of resistance and it sticks to the floor - they don't really stop the car unless the pedal is on the floor and then the car doesn't move, period. The brake fluid is also very low.

My gut instinct is the BMC, although at the moment I don't have a lot of time to devot to this project, so I had it towed today to a shop here in Irvine. I was recommended to this shop by my neighbor, and they seem honest enough - the guy I talked to went to great lengths to make sure I understood what needed to be done and how they intended to proceed - the only problem is the 'general estimate' he handed me at the end - $400-$600

He told me the brake pedal is frozen, this necessitates $200 in labor (to open it up & rebuild it), as well as an unknown amount in parts and downtime (during which hard to find parts will be sourced) - does this seem like a fair amount to rebuild this pedal assembly? It seems to me it would be possible to just hit the entire pedal with a penetrating oil, such as WD-40, to get it moving again, then devot time to fixing the BMC (which he said also sounds like it is bad), this was after a visual inspection of the car with the wheels on, he talked to me about the symptoms and looked at the fluid level.

I need to get brakes on this car, as it is a daily driver, to me $400-$600 sounds like quite a bit of cash for a car with a sticky pedal and a bad BMC. I am also considering some kind of a brake upgrade, at least to the fronts, on this car which makes me leery of spending $600 on the existing setup, any thoughts on this quote for the necessary work? Should I have the car towed for a 'second opinion'?

[Grady Clay]

Scorp,
The shop is correct, you need a new brake master cylinder and the pedal assembly rebuilt. Yes, in some cases it is a lot of work.
If the 912 were 2 years old and un-molested it might take two hours. Who knows what you may find now.

The probable cause is the BMC failed first. This allowed the brake fluid to get in the pedal assembly. The plastic bushings in the pedal assembly are not brake fluid tolerant and cause the pedal(s) to stick.

Regardless of almost any future brake upgrades, you will need to fix this in the same manner. What year 912? What condition?
All this is true for early 911s also.

Best,
Grady