Long brake pedal travel.

[davemar 16]

I've just finally got round to getting my Pug on the brink on being back on the road. I've replaced the brake pipes and hoses, and cleaned up the calipers, got new discs and pads all round. The servo and master cylinder are the same, but cleaned up (gave the servo a lick of paint too). Before the refurb, the brakes were mostly fine with just the rear right being a bit weak (enough to fail the MOT), but with good feel and stopping power.

However, I tried them out for the first time this evening and the brake pedal had a lot of travel before the brakes engaged. Once they did engage they seemed to work well, which suggests the calipers are moving OK.

I've bled the system a few weeks ago and did it again today to make sure there was no air in the system, but that didn't improve things.

 

Any suggests on how I can pin down the cause of this pedal travel?

 

BTW, it's 205 GTi 1.9 with the standard non-ABS brakes.

 

[DamirGTI 323]

Did you "bed in" the pads-and-discs ? .. it's pretty important thing to do after a brake job .

 

Anyhow , it's not uncommon for the brake pedal to feel a little bit lighter after replacing rubber hoses , discs , pads .. brake fluid flush and bleed . 

After "bedding in" procedure and cool down cycle , the pedal should firm up ... or give it a few days of driving and it should feel better on the pedal .

 

If you haven't bedded the pads and discs yet , perform that first .. you can find lots of "how to" on the web and youtube . 

 

 

D

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2020 by DamirGTI

[calvinhorse 870]

Does your car have rear drum brakes? Badly adjusted drums will give a long brake pedal 

[Ozymandis 96]

7 hours ago, calvinhorse said:

Does your car have rear drum brakes? Badly adjusted drums will give a long brake pedal 

Says 1.9 brakes, so i presume its discs ,  i was going to say the same thing then saw 1.9

 

[davemar 16]

Yep, discs all round. I've replaced pads and discs many times over the years, so familiar with the bedding in feel. But this feels like there's way more travel than usual. I'll try and get them more bedded in within the limits of my driveway (no MOT yet!).

[jackherer 543]

Did you bleed it by pumping the pedal? That often kills off old master cylinders.

 

Try holding the brake pedal down for a while, if it continues going down even very slowly you need a new MC.

[Tom Fenton 1,524]

Sounds to me like it just needs driving. Once the pads have all heat cycled the pedal should firm up. 

[davemar 16]

54 minutes ago, jackherer said:

Did you bleed it by pumping the pedal? That often kills off old master cylinders.

 

Try holding the brake pedal down for a while, if it continues going down even very slowly you need a new MC.

Yes, I bled it by pumping the pedal. Obviously with new pipes and hoses I did a complete refill of the fluid, so did a lot of pumping.

I'll check the pedal when it stops chucking it down.

 

[davemar 16]

Holding the brake pedal down turned out to be fine, it stayed very firm. I tried again with a very very short drive (literally a couple of metres back and forwards on my driveway!), and the pedal started to feel better with less travel, so I think it's probably OK and bedding in. Just want to make sure they are fine for the first MOT in over 2 years.

[DamirGTI 323]

You'll need more open road and longer drive around to be able to bed them in properly , initially need to build up the heat in the pads/disc by say 10 series of accelerating and braking all in "one go" , then after the final 10-th just drive off keeping the speed at 80 or above in order to cool the brakes (try not to use brakes at all during this final step .. if possible safety wise of course)  .

 

I like to do that procedure at night when the roads are empty ..

 

If you're MOT is expired so that it limits you driving way past you're local area , use left foot braking (or heel-and-toe) and accelerate in the same time and do a few cycles like so .. build up some heat in the brakes by left foot braking , repeat few times , then drive around to cool them down .

 

D

[Callum 13 1 Cars]

Had a similar problem with the rear calipers being weak on the mot and a few months later pedal felt spongey and long so did a fluid change which didn't help changed master cylinder which helped a bit but came back so clamped off each flexi one at a time and turned out it was one of the rear calipers so replaced it and it's been fine since 

[davemar 16]

On the MOT it failed due to rear brake imbalance with the RH side rear brake being too weak, including the handbrake on that corner. So I've replaced that caliper, and hopefully it'll be OK. Apart from that on brake test it was OK, and on the drive the travel improved and they seemed to bite well once engaged.