[DML] Soft brake peddle UPDATE

[Chris Almy <chris.almy@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, it looks like I finally have good brakes now. Here's a break down (no 
pun intended) of what I did:

Bench bled the master cylinder - This sadly didn't make any difference. I'm 
still not sure what I did wrong as I got a kit to do it. After pumping it 
20-30 times and not getting any bubbles, I reconnected the hard lines. 
Rebled the whole system and nothing!

Replaced rear rubber lines - I thought maybe the combination of the new MC 
and front braided SS lines might have caused the old ones to swell and 
fail. So I spent approximately 4 hours (not including the trip to the 
hospital to get 5 stitches in my arm) replacing them! I've never had to use 
so much force with a hammer on the D to get the old lines out. After 
replacing them, I rebled the system and still no improvement.

Two person bleed - This was the last thing I could think of, since I 
previously used a one-man pressure bleeder. I didn't have a partner 
immediately handy to help, so I just bled the front left brake as I could 
use one arm to pump the brake peddle and another to open/close the bleeder. 
Sure enough I ended up getting a bunch of air through the lines and the 
peddle got much stiffer!

Took it for a quick test drive and the peddle is not nearly as soft now. 
I'm fairly confident that once I get somebody to help me bleed all 4 
brakes, I'll get all the air out of the system! So while that one-man 
pressure bleeder was nice, I wouldn't use it to bleed a newly installed 
system. At least when it comes time to bleed the system again in 2 years, 
it will be a breeze as there shouldn't be any air in the system!

Thanks for the tips,
Chris
VIN 4099

At 09:38 AM 1/5/2006 -0800, I wrote:
>I just recently replaced my calipers and master cylinder. I then used a 1
>man pressure bleeder to bleed the system. While the brakes work, I have to
>pump the peddle once during braking before it gets firm and the car stops
>really well. I rebled the system, which helped a little. But I still have a
>soft peddle the first time I press it.
>
>Is there a special step in bleeding the two piston calipers? It sounds like
>I may still have an air pocket in the system. Or is it possible I have
>something else wrong? The only other thing I can think of is I replaced the
>front rubber lines with the braided SS, while I kept the original rear
>ones. So is it possible the rear ones are expanding too much now? I can
>replace them if necessary, but it's a lot more work I'd rather not do right
>now.






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