Braided Lines - Huge Disappointment

[velluto]

I have been concerned about my stopping ability. Decided to upgrade pads to EBC red stuff. Pads felt good and certainly more bite. Then decided to add braided lines and replaced fluid with Motul. Lines were fitted today. Took car for test drive and did a few too many stops from 140ish, without letting them cool. Result - lots of pad fade but worse than that spongy pedal and pedal distance seemed greater also. With car idling and foot on pedal hard it would sink slowly to the floor. Not good. Took car back and they re-bled brakes all round. Parked car for an hour or so to let everything cool down then tried it again. Pedal still goes to floor when I am sitting with motor running. Car seems to stop ok but still feels spongy and more travel than I had before. Of all the work I have done, this mod is the most disappointing so far and I dont know why. The pedal should be firm with good feel and definitely not sink to the floor at rest.

Can someone please help me with this. The guy who fitted them said everything was very, very hot when I got back after the test drive and I could have boiled the fluid.

What has gone wrong with this bit of work and what suggestions do you have to correct it. The braided lines were pressure tested after they were made and before fitting. And yes, they are compliant to NZ/Aust standards.

The reason I did just pads and lines is that I am trying to delay the caliper/rotor upgrade for a while longer - financial reasons. Also I dont want to discuss which pads are better etc. The pads are not the cause of the sponginess and pedal travel.

Any suggestions? Thanks

Velluto

[grepin]

I am also interested in the outcome from this. I have put QFM pads and RDA discs on and somehow in the process I now have a more spongy feeling brake pedal. I was going to update to better fluid and bleed to fix it. But maybe not.

The difference in the brake setup is there seems to be a fine ajustment in the Ford calipers as against my old Nissan ones.

[mls]

Sounds to me like the fluid is bleeding back past the primary cup in the master cylinder, that is why when sitting with foot on the brake the pedal will slowly fade to the floor.

This can happen when you bleed the brakes and in the process push the pedal to the floor. If there is any crud in the end of the master cylinder the primary cup gets damaged. I'm guessing that you are driving something like an 03-04 year model that may not have had too many brake fluid flushes in its life??

Only way to fix it rebuilt / replace the master cylinder.

[velluto]

Thanks for that mls. Car is a 2005 MkII, done 40km. I will follow that up on Monday and hope I dont hit anything in the meantime!!

Velluto

[ZAP]

Another cause of a spongy pedal is air in the lines. If you do not bleed the ABS system properly, you will never get the air out.

There is a special procedure to bleeding our braking system correctly.

Have a search for the word "bleeding", if it is not that and there is no fluid leaking then it would be the master cylinder, although this should not happen in such a young car.

[senna_T]

when I did the pbr upgrade on my car it took a couple of days for the system to feel right, I still had brakes, just a slightly longer pedal, no it feels really good

[Fat-Tony]

I have had the same issue using when I retrofitted a GA70 Toyota Supra master cyl to my 76' model Celica. It was the seals inside the master cyl that had actually gone. Short and sweet I had to rebuild it. I sat there and bleed the thing 100 thousand times because I thought I still had air in the lines.

[myXR6turbo]

I had this problem after I fitted the pbr upgrade brakes. It ended up air in the front driver calliper. Make sure they bleed them with the callipers in upright position, that way they eleiminate the chance of getting air in the system. This only applies to the front.

[tab]

... I sat there and bleed the thing 100 thousand times because I thought I still had air in the lines.

You'd think after bleeding the lines for the 99,000 th time you'd realise it was something else

[Fat-Tony]

You'd think after bleeding the lines for the 99,000 th time you'd realise it was something else

Such as yourself I am a little slow on the uptake.