Hi, the ongoing saga of my brake fail continues, on my last legs with this now so bare with me and I will try to explain.

My freelander project failed the MOT due to brakes being terrible, The garage looked the brakes over and said the pads are meeting the disks freely and it has new shoes in the rear. They wanted to replace the alternator at nearly £400 saying it was the vacuum pump at fault. I took it home and decided to change the alternator myself which I did today. The brakes are no different.

Symptoms... push brake peddle and it does not stop, brake peddle is not that hard when engine running and if anything feels springy.

How do I test I am getting enough vacuum? and if I am would air in the brake lines cause the same symptoms?

any help would be greatly appreciated as I am getting close to burning it at the moment. Cheers

Just to confirm the brake peddle feels hard when pumped and has say an inch or so at the top of the peddle of softer action. the peddle does not go the floor or sink etc... also you can hear the pads on the disks when you brake as they are still a little rusty but starting to clean up with no change to brake performance.

Just re adjusted the rear brakes and handbrake cable and has made some difference, also tested the vacuum. foot on brake pedal switch on engine, brake pedal sinks slowly and stops after a couple of inches,

when driving and braking the pedal pulses lightly, a bit like ABS coming on but gentler?? all I can think of now is the brakes need bleeding but still not sure.

Are the rear brake cylinders leaking or in good condition . Have you checked the operation of the front guide pins . Have you bled the whole system .

I cut a good inch off the the handbrake spring ,made a big improvement to handbrake operation .

From what you say it sounds like the servos working.. Think I'd start with a strip down, make sure nothing's seized, clean off all corrosion and grease as necessary, then retry!
It's all well and good saying the pads come in contact they may be practically seized still and doing next to nothing

Diesel Do said:

From what you say it sounds like the servos working.. Think I'd start with a strip down, make sure nothing's seized, clean off all corrosion and grease as necessary, then retry!
It's all well and good saying the pads come in contact they may be practically seized still and doing next to nothing

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That is my next job, I paid the garage to inspect the brake system and they said they were all fine but then again they said the alternator booster pump wasn't working and it was so going to strip front brakes next as the rears were done when I changed the shoes, greased up the adjusters and the cylinders were in good order.