Author Topic: brakes confusion  (Read 843 times)

Offline mopar70maniac

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brakes confusion
« on: July 03, 2016 - 11:35:43 PM »
hello group! Im kinda stumped here and am seeking help... I've been doing brakes as a backyard mechanic my whole life and have never run into this problem. this 73 challenger has been sitting about 30 years when I got my hands on it... upon restoring it, we've come to the brakes. We've got new calipers, hoses, pads, shoes, wheel cylinders, and master cylinder. I adjusted the rear shoes, bench bled the master, then bled it at the line fittings, then bled the entire system starting from the furthest bleed point to the closest...with not the greatest results, meaning the pedal never feels rock solid. I've been very careful to not over extend the master cylinder by not letting the brake pedal reach the floor, or let the fluid level get too low. I then bled the entire system again with the same result. I then removed the master cylinder again to make sure it was still bled and it was, so I reinstalled it and bled the entire system again to the tune of 2 large bottles of dot3 fluid with the same result, no solid pedal. what am I missing? I dont have a manual for this car, but I read in my van manual that if you have made repairs to the brake system, centralizing the pressure differential valve is necessary... not sure what that is but on youtube I found a guy saying that if you dont stabilize the proportion valve, you'll never be able to properly bleed the brakes. it requires a special tool that holds the valve in place during the bleeding process. has anyone had any similar experiences? all and any help greatly appreciated!




Offline Bullitt-

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Re: brakes confusion
« Reply #1 on: July 04, 2016 - 09:23:00 AM »
Some folks have had bad rebuilt master cylinders, mine didn't want to pump up so I rebuilt one myself & nothing changed.
My issue turned out to be the rear drums were not adjusted properly partly due to not installing the self adjuster correctly.
Some time later another member here who just had his brakes professionally replaced was having issues & I traced it to the self adjuster as well.

Here's a post I made about that some time back
Other than the master cylinder not holding pressure all I can think of is the rear shoes not being adjusted... I encountered this on Drew's Challenger when he said he had no brakes, his brakes had all been recently replaced.. I found that the auto-adjusters on the rear drums were not engaging the star wheel.  Pull the rear drums & see if the adjuster lever is engaging the star wheel...you can press the cable to see if the lever will catch & turn the wheel.  I found that you need to "cock" the lever, grab it with pliers & pull straight down.



 
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Offline cudabob496

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Re: brakes confusion
« Reply #2 on: July 06, 2016 - 01:33:33 AM »
I switched to the aluminum lightweight master cylinder from Mopar.
You can get different plunger diameters depending on how hard you want
the pedal to feel.
« Last Edit: July 06, 2016 - 01:51:11 AM by cudabob496 »
72 Cuda, owned 25 years. 496, with ported Stage VI heads, .625 in solid roller, 254/258 at .050, 3500 stall, 3.91 rear. 850 Holley DP, Reverse manual valve body.

1999 Trans Am, LS1, heads, cam, headers, stall, etc! Love to surprise the rice rockets with this one. They seem so confident, then it's "what the heck just happened?"

2011 Kawasaki Z1000