Brakes! well lack of them.

Hello all.

I am having a few issues with me brakes, at first when i go to brake my foot goes to the floor almost with no resistance, after pumping it a couple of times the brakes get more effective and the pedal don't go down so far.

I have bled the system through to make sure there is no air in it but still no difference.

Any ideas???? Please......

Check your wheel bearings. If one or more are lose then the 'wheel wobble' will cause the caliper pistons to be pushed back into the caliper.

Worth taking the wheels off one at a time and checking for missing pads, then also maybe taking a caliper off and seeing if any pistons are sticking.

Also worth checking (obviously) for leaks in the system, split hoses etc

Also have someone watch each flexible hose as you press the brake pedal hard, they are known to become weak and bulge occasionally. If one is bulging under pressure the only fix is to replace it.

Thanks for your replies, i shall have a fiddle this weekend and see what i find, I need to do a CV joint so i got to take things apart anyways.

Mines the total opposite! On a morning it sets of fine, and then the first touch of the pedal and WHAAAAAM, it stops dead. Then after I've driven off and freed it up it's fine/ Dunno why it does it!

-Pos

Adjust your back brakes up if your on drum rear , ( as pumping the pedal will jack the shoes closer to the drum ) .

Unfortunately Its disks all round.

B3aker said:

Unfortunately Its disks all round.

Click to expand...

bugger .

I guess after a lot of pumping it is still not as hard as it should be (i.e. solid after a bit of play) - if so then sounds like the master cylinder to me if there is no fluid leaking from any of the wheels, and the tank level is not going down

It does get harder after a couple of pumps. I shall have a fiddle and see what happens and get back to you all. Thank you for your ideas on what it could be.

Had a similar problem in a mgb - turned out to be the master cylinder seal.

If it was the master cylinder seal would i not be loosing fluid?

if yer pump the pedal till its hard ( engine off) then with yer foot on the pedal , start the engine and if the pedal drops as the vac pump fires in, its ok, if it stays hard its yer pump

These symptoms are common for a peKing mater cylinder piston (ie the fluid passing back into the resevoir. Have a look at the slave cylinders and if all ok and not loosing fluid then it must be the master cylinder bypassing - advise getting a new one as replacing piston seals is quite fiddely

listen to james he speaks sense. Sound like the master gone or leaking. i had one that had a crack in the vacuum housing did the same thing they worked just you had to pump them. If you put a bit of WD on the housing you can see if its leaking... thats wat i did and found a tiny crack.

James and beverage are speaking sense.
Far easier to swap the master cylinder for another to confirm that it is knackered. It took me a day to change the seals and rebuild the system on the mgb - but they worked perfect afterwards.
Do they stick on at times or are they always spongy?

To be fair mine weren't particularly spongy they were just crap lol

Beaker, Have you sorted your grinding noise at the front end yet possibly related?
wheel bearing etc

No point playing the guessing game 'cos I had that' you need to do some checks to gather more of an idea of whats gone wrong.

I sorted the grinding noise, was a wheel bearing, it re-appeard so i replaced the opposite one, witch was shagged, rusted to buggery. got it back together, brakes really bad (thinking i may not have done the hub nuts up tight enough), so going to check them tomorrow and also going to have a look at the drivers side CV joint, as that maybe shagged as it was on the rusted to buggery side and see what difference that makes.