Krazy the Face

Got your attention? Good Here's the deal...

My brakes worked fine up until blowing a LR line loading it onto a trailer. The shop offered to do it for free so I left it with them.

When I got it back, they said the bleeder valve was so deteriorated they didn't dare crack it, so they line bled it. This, they said, was good enough and I'm back in business. Well, I'm not. Super mushy pedal and almost no brakes whatsoever.

I line bled the LR again, still had a super mushy pedal and almost no brakes at all. Some other stuff was going on that pointed to a bad MC. Since I pushed a 20+ yr old MC to the floor multiple times, I figured I shredded the seal. So a new MC went in.

Yes, I used new fluid. Yes, I bench bled it. The brakes were still ****. I figured it was air and I needed to get it properly bled. So I went and got two new wheel cylinders for both rear drums, installed them, and set to bleeding.

Nothing. Still garbage. Back to Honda Tech where I learned the CRX had a weird bleed pattern, so I did it by the manual. Nothing.

Opened the drums back up. Ensured all the moving bits inside moved freely and weren't bound or rusted up. They're good. Pulled the front end off, made sure the pistons go out when pushing the pedal. They do. Pads good? Nice and flat with 4 or 5 mm left, they're like new. I did all the "at home" tests of the booster, from the pedal test to pulling hoses and listening. The booster is good to go.

Yet I still have almost no brakes. I tried one last time to hyper bleed these bastards. I ran a whole bottle, 4 oz each corner, through them all, and had a hose connected into another bottle to ensure no air got sucked in. I fiddled with one caliper a bit, loosening then retightening to see if it made a difference in the flex when the brakes were applied. Either way, they seemed to move a bit when pressed. Hopped back in it, and it SEEMS I got maybe 3% more braking, which could honestly be little more than wishful thinking.

What in the bloody hell could possibly be left? I hit the track in two days, I need desperate and instant help please ><

Str8 outta Cliff

Just replace the damn wheel cylinder, what kind of shop would tell you bleeding from the line is "good enough" don't they have torches?

edit: just saw you replaced the wheel cylinderss. how do the rubber lines look?

whited

Are you sure none of your lines are pinched or broken?

tylers_18

bleed the fluid into a clean container. its getting more common for people to contaminate the fluid with other fluids (power steering fluid usually). if the fluid looks to be separating then it is contaminated and often all the older rubber that has been touched with the contaminated fluid is shot. your mc and rear wheel cylinders probably survived if it was a few days ago. if its not contaminated then could be faulty parts. I'm guessing you had to get a a1 cardone mc? if so i would put money on it being junk! i have done a lot of mcs on a lot of cars and many 2 cardones were good out of the box. the other thing it could be is worn/misadjusted pedal assembly. thats kinda a stretch since it happened quick and didn't get worse and worse till it got bad.

Krazy the Face

Thanks all. To answer...

Just about all the fluid is new. Yeah, there is probably a touch of the old stuff floating around somewhere that I might have missed with the rampant bleeding I was doing, but from all four wheels and the MC, it's all coming out new and clear. No sediment, no separation, no murk. I didn't just bleed each wheel a little bit, I bled them all until the new fluid from the new MC started coming through. I'm about on my third bottle of the stuff.

All the rubber lines look fine from the outside. All are solid, no cracks, no visible bulges or collapses, no kinks. I can see them stiffen when the pedal is depressed. All the connections I haven't touched. They're tight, no leaks.

I dunno what MC I got, but it wasn't cardone. It was just an off the shelf from Autozone, dunno the brand.

I don't know nothing about pedal assemblies or how to adjust, but like you said, I don't see how that could be it. All of the "brake parts" are the same. No different pads, calipers, or rotors. Everything was fine up until I blew that line, and now I can't get the brakes back. New hard lines, new MC, new wheel cylinder, nothing is working. I just don't freaking get it. I've bled Subarus and S-10s and Silverados and Cutlasses and YFZ450s and Gixxers; every time it takes longer to get the tools out than it does to do the actual job. With this, I'm going on three weeks with no fix ><

I know I'm getting braking force. The front pistons and the rear cylinders expand when depressing the pedal. I'm about to go tear apart both front calipers to make sure they're sliding properly. But that's my absolute last idea. I gotta hit the track on Saturday, and if I just hafta downshift hard to make corners, well... =(

tylers_18

off the shelf from autozone is usually cardone. before going racing see about warranting that master. and double check all your connections aren't leaking