soft brake pedal

Justin081 · 03-14-2009, 03:49 PM

I just did my front brakes. New pads and new calipers on both sides. now that I am done i had someone help me bleed them and took it for a ride. it seems to stop ok but the pedal is really soft and goes way down before it will do anything. what could be causing this? and there is no air in the lines. help please?

Kilroy · 03-14-2009, 04:00 PM

You may THINK there is no air in the lines, but it sure sounds like it. I have sometimes had luck just letting the vehicle sit for a while. I lucked out completely on my '92 4Runner this way, as the brakes "self-bled". Can't guarantee it will work with your vehicle, but either way, it sure sounds like air in the lines.

Justin081 · 03-14-2009, 05:07 PM

well when i bleed them no air comes out just fluid. how else would i get the air out if there is air in the lines?

jayson_waltz · 03-14-2009, 09:01 PM

when mine was soft i added more brake fluid. even if it is at least above the min line fill it up to right on or a tad bit above the max line. it helped mine.

misslindseysue · 03-14-2009, 09:53 PM

Keep adding and bleeding until you see bubbles or it gets firm again (hehe). Really... that's a safety issue and brake fluid is cheap.

Alero_1986 · 03-14-2009, 10:57 PM

def sounds like air in the brake lines especially if they were fine before they were bled. The only other possibility is a bad master cylinder. If you added the appropriate fluid I would doubt it would fail after a bleed.
Did you manually bleed them, or use a vacuum?

03-14-2009, 11:38 PM

I have found that the old method of having someone pump the brake pedal while another works the caliper bleeder screw doesn't work real well on these cars.
Get yourself a pressure bleeder:

Justin081 · 03-15-2009, 12:22 AM

I hand someone in my car pumping the brake pedal while i was working the bleeder screw. and the brake fluid is up to the max line. i am going to try bleeding them again in the morning and see if i can get any air out and make it better. maybe i just suck at bleeding brakes but it seemed like all fluid coming out when i opened the bleeder.

pawzbear · 03-15-2009, 01:17 AM

could be the master cylinder starting to go.. I had to replace mine at 110k when I had some brake work done.. we didnt notice until then!

Other than that.. we always manually bled my olds.. never a problem.

CactusWill · 03-15-2009, 06:32 AM

And you're sure that you've thoroughly pumped the pedal through the initial mushy phase? After a major brake job like that, it could take a good minute or two of pumping the pedal to push the tolerances into place and restore full pressure against them....

Gr1m · 03-15-2009, 11:59 PM

are you bleeding them in the proper wheel sequence?

Justin081 · 03-18-2009, 05:37 PM

no i wasnt bleeding them in the proper sequence. i was only bleeding the front ones because those are the ones I replaced and thought i only had to do them. I bled them again in the proper sequence this time and it seems to be good now. not as stiff and sensitive as some cars i have driven but a lot better then it was.