Brakes Not Braking Even

[[CJ] 0]

Hi all,

 

I recently noticed that my car was drawing to the right when braking. A friend of mine said it could be a defect caliper so we took both calipers in the front of and moved the piston back and forth we no problems at all. We refitted them. Then we bleeded the brakes by letting a lot of brakefluid pass to make sure that there was no air in the system. The rear discs and pads was worned down so i changed those today but that didn't help on the braking at all. What can be wrong with the car ?? I fitted a new mastercylinder for about 6 month ago but not the vacuum-servo. Can it be the servo thats defektive? When depressing the brakepedal several times while the car is turned off it hardenes but its still a bit soft. It doesn't travel downwards though. So what could it be??

 

/Christian

[Ahl 4]

A bit of a longshot, but I remember someone saying that their car went to the right under braking, and to the left under acceleration because their wishbone bushes/joints were badly worn.

Might have been the other way round though.

[[CJ] 0]

Yeah well.. I thought that too, so i went on a brakestand (is it called that?) to test them and it braked alot more on the right wheel until i fully depressed the brakepedal where it would almost even out - thats why we checked the calipers.

 

/Christian

[pug_ham 240 3 Cars]

The flexible brake hoses can deterioratre with age and restrict the flow. Do they release OK?

 

For the sake of £7 each it could be worth while changing those if your bushes seem OK.

 

Graham.

[cybernck 400 1 Cars]

maybe one of the rear brake compensators is faulty?

[Rob_the_Sparky 9]

One of my rear brakes works twice as hard as the other (soon to be fixed) and the effect under braking is barely noticable so I would say problem is at the front end.

 

Rob

[fiji bob 0]

my car veered to the right under moderate braking didnt do it if you braked lightly or heavily it was the nearside piston in the front caliper that was seized but if you say youve checked them i dont know what it could be

[[CJ] 0]

Hmm.. could try the hose-thing. Maybe i should buy braided hoses while im at it. I just bought some ferodo discs and pads for the rear and mounted them today with no noticable changes. The only thing thats a bit strange is that the left rear piston in the caliper had to be turned three times as much to pull it back where as the right one was 2-3 turns at max. I just bought them a little over a year ago and I sure hope they are not defective. I still can't make the handbrake work proberly. Can you guys make the wheels lock on dry road??

 

/Christian

(maybe i should just remove discs, pads, calipers and all the piping and just save the weight. I could do a killer quartermile time.... ONCE)

[Doof 11]

I'm having exactly the same problem, havent checked out calipers yet but i want to before we do another trackday. Im gonna see if theres anywhere i can check the brake balance.

 

Can you get those front flexable hoses from pug for 7 quid then? could be worth a shot.

[fiji bob 0]

i bought some from gsf they were exactly the same as the ones that were already on the car im pretty sure they had corteco printed on them

[[CJ] 0]

Doof... yeah.. let me know what you find out. ;-)

 

/Christian

[C_W 3 1 Cars]

,May 31 2003, 12:59 AM] Doof... yeah.. let me know what you find out. ;-)

 

/Christian

Have you checked the suspension rather than just looking at the brakes? If something has play in it then it will move under braking and acceleration.

 

At the moment mine is still a bit iffy under braking epseically from high speed, which I'm hoping will be fixed when I changed the rear beam as the back right wheel is effectively loose at the moment.

[Doof 11]

The fact that the front left and back right lock up easier than the others makes me thing its the brakes but then anything is worth a look cuz its really annoying.

[Wurzel 16]

Doof,

 

If the front left and rear right are locking up more easily then I guess you are looking for a common fault. Sounds like the mastercylinder.

 

There is a chance of the coincidental symptoms though which always buggers things up when fault finding.

[[CJ] 0]

Well.. I'm sure that its the brakes since i tested them on a brakestand (kind of rollingroad for brakes - not sure if brakestand is the right word) and it surely braked more on the right than on the left. After bleeding the brakes it did get a little bit better but not good enough. The mastercylinder is brand new - its from a 306GTI-6 and I used the guide from www.205GTI.com to buy and fit it. I checked the piping today to check if I had fitted them diagonally (front-right / rear-left and front-left and rear-right) and that was good too.

 

/Christian

[Doof 11]

Im not sure how the master cylinder works, does it pump two separate resevoirs or does it just pum into the circuit as a whole? because theres only the one master cylinder i would have thought this would affect the whole braking circuit.....

[[CJ] 0]

I assume it has two resevoirs. If one brakeline is leaking for some reason the other should still work. Thats the whole point as far as I know.

 

/Christian

[Doof 11]

Right so it could be the master cylinder then, any idea how much they are because it would be easy for us to change as we have the engine out at the minute.

 

Cheers,

 

Lewis.

 

PS: CJ i'll let you know if we manage to sort if, let us know how you get on with yours as well

[[CJ] 0]

I got alot of discount on mine but I think i paid around 110 pounds including everything (splitters, resevoir etc.).

 

I will post my progress in here as soon as I find out what is wrong!

 

/Christian

[Ahl 4]

Maybe im getting confused here, but I paid about £60 for a complete master cylinder from the local motor factors.

It was an AP one.