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In my pervious post here
http://ericthecarguy.com/kunena/8-Service-and-Repair-Questions-Answered-Here/49089-2000-accord-replace-caliper-or-not#86123I knew i had a sticking caliper. on front right side,
I changed it today with one from Pepboys , its their in house brand Prostop.The sticking is definetley gone, but the break pedal goes in all the way when driving , its firm when parked. The car seem to stop fine.
I wanted to see if someone with more exprince can tell me if this is okay or I should take it to a shop?
I also checked if the hoes were fine by pressing the pedal a few times and opening the bleeder, the fluid barley came out , it was not pressurized.
I have two questions,
1) if pedal goes all the way down, is that a sign of something bad? even if the car stops fine, its just feeling linear versus before it was full power at ones. Could changing the pads, rotors, new fluid cause this? Or maybe the sticking caliper from before was causing early full power to the calipers?
There is resistance but not a whole alot, and i dont feel more resistance the more I press.^ I dont know if I am being paranoid since its breaks or this is okay as long as the car stops.
2) would ABS kick in if the break system wasnt working to its full potential?. I slamed on break as hard as I could , the car made a small screeching sound and i heard the ABS kick in. The pedal went all the way down however, I am not sure if the two means its working fine or it means something is wrong.
I’ve checked for leaks and bleed the system more than ones , no air came out and only clean fluid came out.
The only thing I can think of is maybe some air got to the rear shoes because my hoes were too small. I just pressed as hard as i could so that no air would get in, maybe i didnt press hard enough.Another note is that,
the master cylinder was changed by a shop about 2 years ago. This car has had break problems prior to change of the master cylinder.
Could it be that he used poor part and its slowly falling apart?Thanks for everybody for feedback,I’ve watched every video eric made that had to do with calipers. I cant figure it out on my own at this point.
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I would have it checked out. The pedal shouldn’t travel to the floor under normal braking conditions.
Did you use new brake fluid from a sealed container? Brake fluid is hydroscopic and will absorb water from the air over time after the seal is broken. I would not trust an opened container of brake fluid that sat on a shelf in my garage for a year or more.
Another quick check for buldges in the flexible brake lines when the brakes are applied – i.e. the pressurized brake fluid is causing the line to buldge instead of pushing the caliper piston(s).
The master cylinder is another suspect, but I don’t have much experience here. Hopefully, someone else does.
Yeah, air still in the system or a bad master are the two more likely causes. If it is air you should be able to pump the pedal a few times and then obtain a normal hard pedal. Anyway, the brake pedal after normal travel should feel hard and never bottom.
Thanks for the replies,
The weirdest thing happened. Last night I drove the car after 5 hours after I finish the job.
The pedal felt almost normal. Without me doing anything to it….It still works just fine,
I suspect there is some air in the system, and the bushing on the opposite caliper is almost completely rotten away.Going to bleed the whole system one more time after replacing the bushing.
I cant explain why it worked fine all sudden, but I am happy it did.
Cheers,
I will recomend Prostop reman calipers except dont use the shimmed they come with, They are not cut to spec.but quality of the parts are high.
Honestly, I would not have chosen those parts. There are better quality parts out there more suited to imports. That said, it sounds like you’ve made some progress. I was going to suggest this as I’ve run into these issues in the past, particularly on Hondas.
That information was also in the article I posted on your other post BTW.
You might also find this interesting.
[quote=”EricTheCarGuy” post=86281]Honestly, I would not have chosen those parts. There are better quality parts out there more suited to imports. That said, it sounds like you’ve made some progress. I was going to suggest this as I’ve run into these issues in the past, particularly on Hondas.
That information was also in the article I posted on your other post BTW.
You might also find this interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsaEtMaW6Qw%5B/quote%5D
Thanks Eric for your continous support i didnt even think to look athe shimes.
In your opinion if this is the 2nd master cylinder going bad (possibly),what should i be looking at. I dont think its normal for them to fail every 20-25k.
A remanufactured part, if that is what the shop used when they replaced your master cylinder, and this applies to other parts such as starters and alternators as well, usually don’t last like a new OEM part. I have had good luck with remanufactured calipers. Those are apparently pretty simple to get right. The quality of a remanufactured master cylinder, on the other hand, would depend on the quality of the bore and the quality of the material the seals are made of.
[quote=”barneyb” post=86357]A remanufactured part, if that is what the shop used when they replaced your master cylinder, and this applies to other parts such as starters and alternators as well, usually don’t last like a new OEM part. I have had good luck with remanufactured calipers. Those are apparently pretty simple to get right. The quality of a remanufactured master cylinder, on the other hand, would depend on the quality of the bore and the quality of the material the seals are made of.[/quote]
I sold the car to my uncle he did service at a shop he trusted, I doubt they used quality parts. alot of shops dont , thast why I started to do my own repairs. I bought the car back after a bad accident with my Corolla.
I dont want to blame it on the master cylinder yet, I am trying to borrow one of those fansy phenoix bleeders in order to completely rule out air in the system.
You seem to know alot about breaks,
one question I have is this :
Is there a diffrence between closing the bleeder while the pedal is down or up?
Eric simply pressed the pedal and closed it in his bleeding system video, alot of other videos suggest closing it when the pedal is almost to the floor , letting go of the pedal and continuing the cycle.I also ordered some REALLY flexable hose incase some air got into the rear bleeders. 8mm bleeders were hard to manage with my non-flexble hoes.
The fact that my breaking pedal is not consistance bothers me alot , I have confidence in breaks for city driving but a “break check” on highway gives me a slight worry.
THANKS!
[quote=”Hanneman” post=86151]I would have it checked out. The pedal shouldn’t travel to the floor under normal braking conditions.
Did you use new brake fluid from a sealed container? Brake fluid is hydroscopic and will absorb water from the air over time after the seal is broken. I would not trust an opened container of brake fluid that sat on a shelf in my garage for a year or more.
Another quick check for buldges in the flexible brake lines when the brakes are applied – i.e. the pressurized brake fluid is causing the line to buldge instead of pushing the caliper piston(s).
The master cylinder is another suspect, but I don’t have much experience here. Hopefully, someone else does.[/quote]
Hi,
yes I used freshly opened bottle of Valvoline dot3/dot4 breakfluid.
I heard their breakfluid is best one after OE.
No visible Buldging or other problems with the hoes as far as I can tell.It must be MC or air in system.
[i]You seem to know alot about breaks,
one question I have is this :
Is there a diffrence between closing the bleeder while the pedal is down or up?
Eric simply pressed the pedal and closed it in his bleeding system video, alot of other videos suggest closing it when the pedal is almost to the floor , letting go of the pedal and continuing the cycle.I also ordered some REALLY flexable hose incase some air got into the rear bleeders. 8mm bleeders were hard to manage with my non-flexble hoes.
The fact that my breaking pedal is not consistance bothers me alot , I have confidence in breaks for city driving but a “break check” on highway gives me a slight worry.[/i]
The idea is to keep air out of the brake lines. When you take your foot off the brake pedal the pistons in the master cylinder that were pushing fluid under pressure to the calipers return to their original position. If the bleeder is open this can suck in air. So it is bleeder open, pedal down, bleeder closed, pedal up. This requires two people.
Eric is a one man shop. So, his alternative method is to put a hose on the bleeder and submerge the other end in brake fluid. That way brake fluid instead of air gets sucked in.
The two person method is greatly superior for two reasons. First you are at the caliper and can see if air or clean brake fluid is coming out. Second, it may be possible for a little air to sneak in around the bleeder threads when the bleeder is open. However, when alone, you have no choice.
If you have air in the system the pedal is not going to change, it will go down farther and feel soft all of the time. Well, you can pump the pedal and eventually get a hard pedal like normal.
The seals in the master cylinder are like little rubber cups. When you step on the brakes the cups expand and seal to the bore – until they wear out and no longer seal. They could seal one time and not the next. This would lead to an inconsistent pedal.
The other possibility is that you still have something wrong at one or more calipers and the pads sometimes get hung up and cannot press against the rotor. I’ve seen aftermarket pads that are too big and too small. The too small ones make noise but the too big ones can stick. The simple fix is a little grinding. Aftermarket shims can also not fit correctly and cause problems. Finally, the piston in the caliper bore can stick.
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