Hi everyone,
In a bit of trouble as I have no brake power (aside from handbrake). I've got a S2 1.1 xn with ate calipers and drums. I went for mot and my brakes felt fine to me, the guy said that my rear offside wheel was giving little or no effort, took it home and my dad used a gunson one man bleeding kit (one of those bottle feed systems that runs off a tire), after he tightened the bleed nipple back up he left the kit on and after about a minute it made a fizzing noise as the cap came off the reservoir and it sprayed fluid everywhere - I think this is when the damage was done. There was no braking power at all. After several times bleeding it, I could still get my foot to the floor without any brake power - i.e. there was complete free travel. Since then I've replaced the master cylinder and the rear offside wheel cylinder. I've bled the system three times and there is still loads of free travel but when you pump the brake it builds up pressure and the pedal starts to get stiffer, making me think its still trapped air. The wierd thing is that the reservoir is staying full, I thought if there was a leak somewhere that was letting in air and losing the brake pressure that it would throw out all the oil!? After taking it to kwik-fit the guy there siad they wouldn't do it because of the replaced master cylinder but ona Ford Ka there is a bolt on the shaft that connects with the master cylinder that needed to be tightened or loosened and that it would be the same on mine - I've taken the master cylinder off (again) and can't see this anywhere. Could anybody please offer me anyhelp?

Sorry its such a long post, thought that the more info people had the better their advice wouild be. Cheers in advance for any help.

hope you wiped the brake fluid off the paintwork as its like paintstripper

Yeah been pretty careful with that, even went to lengths of getting a syringe to empty out the the reservoir rather than syphoning it - don't mind too much petrol in my mouth but brake fluid? No thanks.

You're doing all the right things and I think you just need to carry on bleeding until it gets sorted.

I've never heard of the bolt in the shaft to the m/cyl' that you speak of - sounds like a bit of a brush-off by the Kwikfit guys to me.

Keep doing what you're doing and keep an eye out for leaks - it's probably just trapped air and unlikely to be leaking etc...

is the new master identical to the one you replaced?

can you check the pushrod is not obstructed by something thus allowing hte piston inside the master to be fully pushed out when the pedal is released?

I cannot work out if the old one was faulty or you replaced it when you could not get the brakes to go hard.

can there be somehting trapped in the lines or the flexi hoses being bad to act as a valve?

how are you bleeding the system? the 2-person method I found to be best. get person 1 to press on brake, pereson 2 opens nipple, then closes nipple telling person 1 to lift pedal, repeat.

are you re-using the fluid? (I do but you need to wait for the bubbles to go or else you are forever replacing the air in the system).

no idea really but if it is important to get the car working, you need to disconnect the lines from the master and blank off each hole.

then connect one line, do your pedal pushing, if all is well, fit the next line and so on until you have done all 4. hopefully at some stage the problem occurs so you can identify the faulty circuit, else have a box of tissues handy to stem the flow of tears.


(hint: notice how I use paragraphs to make i easier to read)

[Edited on 12/3/09 by 02GF74]

the guy at quik poo was right.

on both my next door neighbors and mums 106 had awful breaks and we found the cause.

because its primarily a LHD frog car they have bodged the RHD version, the pedal pushes a level that then goes across the bulkhead to the MC on the passenger side.

we found there was a lot of slack in this so the first half of pedal movement was wasted.

i would bleed everything properly until you are sure there is no air, if you still dont have a huge amount of breaking force check there is no play in the bar, there is an adjuster near the end.

HI Everyone,
Thanks for the advice so far - sorry for not using paragraphs - in an apethetic mood earlier and grammar was way down the list of priorities.

I replaced the m/cyl thinking the old one was faulty but now I'm not so sure. Been reading my Haynes manual and says a faulty servo could cause excess travel, but I don't really wanna shell out anymore cash - especially if its not the problem!

The new m/cyl isn't exactly the same, the old one was an ate and new is a delphi lockheed but shape is near identical and operates the same diag split circuit!

I'm gonna re-connect everything and bleed it through with all new fluid (had been re-using old stuff before) and see how I go from there...cheers for the help everybody.
As for bleeding, initially used a one man kit but have also been using the two man method, unfortunately on my todd now so going back to the kit.
Tom

quote:

---

Originally posted by dan__wright
the guy at quik poo was right.

on both my next door neighbors and mums 106 had awful breaks and we found the cause.

because its primarily a LHD frog car they have bodged the RHD version, the pedal pushes a level that then goes across the bulkhead to the MC on the passenger side.

we found there was a lot of slack in this so the first half of pedal movement was wasted.

i would bleed everything properly until you are sure there is no air, if you still dont have a huge amount of breaking force check there is no play in the bar, there is an adjuster near the end.

---

that bar is pretty obvious in the engine bay, is a right bodge really.

It gets in the way of everything else so should be easy to adjust.

I would do a two person bleeding session if you can is much better, is how me and dad do it and we have never had probs with air in the lines etc

I've taken out the air filter and can easily see that bar, problem now is I can't take the servo off because there's some electrical cable squeezed in over a bolt and nowhere to unplug it - effectively making the bolt inaccessable by hand/tool. Aggghh I hate the french!

quote:

---

Originally posted by tomprescott
Been reading my Haynes manual and says a faulty servo could cause excess travel

---

just tried that and i think the servo is ok, just re-assembled everything and i gonna use new fluid and bleed till im sore!

^^^ bleed using 2 man method as I described.

if that fails, you need to remove the pipeworks as descirbed to isolate the fault or you'll be there a very long time with very sore legs getting nowhere........

I've had to stop now because of the weather (tipping it down) I'll try a heavy bleeding session (i'll get a mate round to do the pedal) later on tonight or tomorrow morning and if that doesn't sort it I'll have to take it to a garage to get ripped off. I'll let you know how I get on and post what the problem was in case anybody else comes across the same thing. Thanks to everyone that helped, much appreciated. Tom