Ok, so after years of grinding on the caliper bracket, I finally just finished my Legend Brake Upgrade. Only bled the front calipers because I didn’t touch the rears ( I hope this was the right thing to do). Now I have pressure until I start the car. Trying to stop at about 5 mph, the brake pedal sinks to the floor with only about 20% braking force. I am having to use the ebrake to stop faster.
I have bled the fronts five times now. Same thing after each time, I have firm pressure until I start the car and start to drive away.
Does anyone have any guesses?
This is kinda baffling. My brakes were perfectly fine before the upgrade.
Please help!
I have ABS, New rotors, new pads, SS lines, stock size MC.
Try bleeding all 4 corners, but if you didn’t remove the master cylinder or disconnect the rear lines there shouldn’t be enough air in there to cause the problem you’re having. Your master cylinder may have went out. It’s actually common for it to fail when you do a brake upgrade which requires a serious bleeding session. The MC gets used to working in a certain range (normal braking you only push the pedal a couple inches, rarely do you push it to the floor) and when you bleed the brakes you put the MC thru a much wider range of motion. It’s actually recommended to put a block of wood or some other sort of stopper under the pedal so you’re not pushing it all the way to the floor.
Start with bleeding again, do all 4 corners and make sure there’s no air in the system. If you’re still having the problem then it’s time to start looking at the MC as being the culprit.
make sure you followed the correct bleeding diagram as stated in the helms manual…i have done the traditional bleeding before of right rear, left rear, right front, left front…but I believe in the manual it is left rear, right front, left rear and left front…I believe that is correct. i will have to check in the service manual…also make sure the bleeder screws on the caliper is facing up and not down…that is your main problem right there…
either your master cylinder went bad or you let it go completly empty while doing the brake upgrade. If the later is what happend then you’ll need to take master cylinder off and bench bleed it unless you want to do it while its installed on the car.
Ok so the car has been out for a couple of weeks now. Finally just decided to go ahead and replace the master cylinder because I still had the original 20 year old unit that was still in there. Bench Bled the Master Cylinder (God I hope we didn’t F that part up!)
Bled all 4 wheels, went with what the manual said, RR,LF,LR,RF, I hear there are other ways to do it.
So now I can get pedal pressure after the full flush, but if you let it sit for a sec, it loses that pressure and you have to pump it again to build pressure.
After I start the car, same thing, pedal all the way to the floor with no resistance with just a lil bit of braking from way at the bottom of the pedal travel.
Any other ideas, guys?
I can think of one, that maybe that I didn’t tighten one of the banjo bolts when I did the caliper swap. But I don’t leak any fluid. Could it be that it’s only loose enough to let air enter, but not allow fluid to leak?
Also maybe I damaged one of the stainless steel lines during the install, I definitely wasn’t overly careful. But then again, i don’t have a fluid leak.
Like I said, I had no issues before the swap.
if you have no fluid on the joints you should be good .are the seals in the calipers good ?
i had a similar issue with my jeep where the dust boot was holding fluid [strange it didnt show a leak ,but worth a look before you buy a mc].
Ok so we did one more flush just for good measure. Now I have some braking force once you pump the pedal, but the initial press of the brake pedal does almost nothing. Braking is fine after that but if I sit there idle, I will lose the firmness and I’d have to pump it up again.
So I have brakes but still very low in the travel, and not at the initial pump.
HELLLLP…
I’d prefer not to automatically assume it’s the brake booster. Sounds expensive.
AHA!!
After more searching i think I know what it is. The brake booster pushrod thingamabobber is out of spec. There is too much clearance and is not engaging the master cylinder until very late in the travel.
NEVER MIND!!!
It’s not the booster pushrod!
It’s the fact that the bleeder screws are facing down, not up.
I should’ve switched sides.
Thank you for the reply earlier about that, would’ve saved me plenty of time.
I’m glad I didn’t mess around with the booster pushrod adjustment. PITA.
[QUOTE=JonJonJonJon;2303046]NEVER MIND!!!
It’s not the booster pushrod!
It’s the fact that the bleeder screws are facing down, not up.
I should’ve switched sides.
Thank you for the reply earlier about that, would’ve saved me plenty of time.
I’m glad I didn’t mess around with the booster pushrod adjustment. PITA.[/QUOTE]
you are welcome lol…common mistake no biggie man glad you got it sorted out.
