On-going front brake issues

[Ric S.]

First Happy 4th. I am spending mine under the car. I am trying to finally get front brakes. Right now I have none. I am trying to properly bleed the system. I replaced the front brake master c. because it was leaking at the cap. OK, that solved that problem. (The pushrod actually appears a bit shorter on the new one).

Now the questions:
1. Do you remove the rear brake pushrod from the pedal bias bracket in order to bleed the fronts? When I do I get so much travel in the pedal at the bias rod, it does not push enough pressure on the front pushrod to move it forward. Too much free play with only one connected.

2. How far into the bias brackets do you screw the respective pushrods? I have the rear rod in so far it almost touches the bias crossbar. The front pushrod is in about 1/4 inch, not even enough to be felt on the inside of the bracket.

I went to the Wilwood tech site and it appears I am doing their directions correctly. I do believe I have a bleeding challenge at present. I have never had good braking on the car. The only way I can lock her down is I hit the car in front of me. I have done the pad seating process twice to see little improvements. I feel I have an adjustment/bleeding issue.

At present I have a real affection for good working brakes. I am just feeling the love with this system.

Any takers??

Thanks in advance.

Ric

[mkassab]

With my limited knowledge on Wilwood (but have good basic brake knowledge) I throw out some thoughts:
1. Did you bleed the new master cylinder per the instruction before you connected it?
2. Are all the connections tight?
3. Are the bleed nipples closed?
4. If pedal has too much travel and can’t pump it up and you did steps 1 to3 above, my guess is you have a bad master cylinder.
5. Did you start bleeding at the brake furthest away from the master cylinder?
6. Did you bleed until the new fluid and all air bubbles were gone?
7. Sometimes, a different color brake fluid will really help. This is what I do… I alternate between clear and blue the no errors on brake fluid change out every two years.

Mark

[eliminator]

Don't know which brakes you have but I have the big brake set up and my caliphers have an outer and inner bleed valve, you must do each one to properly bleed the brakes.

Now that is said, these brakes are OK, my brakes have the first generation 4 piston front caliphers. I have always thought the brakes are OK but not anything above that. I have the new Smart Pads by Willwood and their best slotted rotors and still they are just OK. Don't know how good the new caliphers are but I hope they are much better than mine. If you heat mine up they do work much better.

[mkassab]

Hey Rick, I noticed you said your brakes are better when heated you. That usually is a indication that you have brake pads that lean more to track/race use vs. street use. Track/rack pad are made for high heat and therefore funciton better when hot. Street use, on the other hand work better under "normal" street conditions.... and not well when hot (where fading starts). Have you tried street pads?

Mark

[eliminator]

Mark,

Yes, I understand that. I am on my 3rd set of pads (compounds) to try and find out what works the best for me.
I just received my caliphers back from Wildwood before Homecoming , there was an issue with a sticking piston. Brakes are better but I don't have the miles on it yet to make a statement.
Some street pads put out so much brake dust that they are totally unacceptable to me.

[mkassab]

Rick, do me a favor and let me know what pad you end up with. I ordered the big brake upgrade kit and have no idea what pad will come with it? BTW, I see you're in KY.... I drive there tomorrow and pick up my new engine at the dyno shop Thur. Then Friday AM, drop it off at Unique so Maurice can install, etc.
Mark

[spd4me]

I had some longer push rods made in order to get my pedals more to an upright position so when I put my foot on the petal it touched the gritty part and not the top. To bleed, I unscrewed the rear push rod, moved the adjustable ball all the way over to the left (top of front brake master) and started with the farthest bleeder. Nice if you have someone to pump pedal and another to keep reservior full. Then repeated with rears. To bleed the rears, I bent a piece of brake tube into a "U" and a short piece of rubber hose to one end (that attaches to bleeder) and a longer piece to the other end of U that can hang down into jar. I found it to hard to try to get a piece of hose to attach to the bleeder and then bend down into a jar.
Bob