plat

By sensitive, I mean it takes much less force on the pedal than usual for the same amount of braking power. Brakes feel sort of on or off and do not seem to modulate very well. The slightest touch produces a very large braking force.

And the pedal is very easy to press down to the bottom of travel. It does not sink but just seems very easy to depress and does not seem to travel as far from top to bottom as it should. You can easily bottom out the pedal with your hand as I show below. Pumping the pedal has no effect.

With engine off, the pedal is rock hard and does not sink. After stopping the engine, pedal can be pressed easily two or three times on the residual vacuum in the booster. This all seems normal.

I have not lost brake fluid and have no visible leaks. This really feels to me like there is suddenly a much stronger boosting power which makes the brakes more sensitive and easy to bottom out the pedal. But as far as I know, my car did not just grow a bigger booster or much engine vacuum overnight. Do you guys have any ideas on this? I should not normally be able to bottom out the pedal by hand, right?

KP11520

Sometimes your master cylinder leaks inside as you press. How that makes the brakes grab harder, I don't know. Could be several things.

Check:

Master Cylinder,
4 calipers/pads
4 Brake Hoses.

Sometimes brake hoses delaminate from the inside and cause all kinds of problems.

Some here prefer to rebuild their Master Cylinder at $25 or so. I recently bought a New Centric for a little over $60 shipped and flushed the brake fluid as well. I also replaced the hoses with Stainless Steel braided hoses since mine were original. I used Goodridge and they were around $110 for all four shipped. Nice!

Hope this helps.

plat

Thanks, I will look at everything tomorrow and try bleeding as well.

I find it very coincidental that I have this problem just a couple of days after my clutch hydraulics were replaced. The mechanic said that the clutch and brake systems were connected by the metal box located under the clutch master, and I should watch for brake problems because of the black clutch fluid possibly messing up the brakes as well.

I am almost certain that he is dead wrong(or lying) about all of that, because(I believe) that metal box is the brake proportioning valve and has no connection to the clutch system. Can anyone confirm this? My car does not have ABS so there isn't anything else it could be.


Is it true that I should not be able to push the pedal to the bottom of it's travel if all is working correctly? I have never even thought to try this before so I honestly don't know.


Also, do you think that the hoses are due for replacement just because of their age? How long can they be expected to last?

martyl45