alright, i bought my 89 civic si earlier this summer and it came with 87 crx front brakes which are smaller than the stock 89 civic calipers, the rotors are almost the same. (the guy had the 87 calipers on because the old stockers seized up). and so me and a buddy did the swap. went flawlessly, well the front did, we then had to get new wheel cylinders in the back becuase hte bleed valve snapped off completely and so prety much the entire brake line from the start of the wheel well to the wheel cylinder is new, part ss, part cheap auto store bendable line. so we tightened everything up real tight and we bled it so much that i believe we went through about a gallon in total of brake fluid. we then decided why not try the MC, even though it was working before maybe something went wrong. nothing after the new MC. the brakes have absolutely no pressure in them at all and i dont know what the problem could be, is there something like you are supposed to fill up the caliper or wheel cylinder before installing it, i wouldnt think that would matter but i just dont know.
please help me i want to drive my F'ing EF.

 

one pint should be enough to bleed the entire brake system.

if youve got no brake pressure, youve got a leak. probably has to do with those brake lines you installed.

 

my current problem is that for some reason it just wont hold pressure, everything is tight as it can be without stripping it. there are no leaks from any of the connections that we redid. i know a very minimal amount should do it but before we switched the MC, it was getting better and better but no longer the case. now its just not holding pressure at all and the brakes dont work at all.

 

no holding pressure as in brake pedal just slowly sinks?

 

no i mean basically you can pump as much as you want, like you would to bleed it, and the pressure never builds up like it should. you could pump for 8 days and nothing would happen.

 

uh... you sure everything is installed correctly? are any rotor/drum getting any brake pressure? check each individually. see if its one particular corner.

if not... then something wrong with the MC you installed.

 

yeah im stumped, im gonna try undoing all the connections we connected and then retighten them down and try to seat them better.
just for reference are you supposed to fill up the calipers with fluid before you put them in? i didnt because i figured that it wouldnt make a difference.

 

no, thats not needed as long as you bleed it properly.

when you were bleeding by the gallon, were you still seeing air come out?

 

we weren't just pouring it in just to keep it going, for the first few pumps we were getting air, but then after that there was no air. which is the really strange part.

 

so if youre not getting air out of the brake caliper, then stop bleeding. youre done. why would you continue to bleed gallons???

did you ever let the reservoir get low and pump air back in???


and if youre brake just goes to the floor, especially after you "bled" the system, then something is wrong with your installation or parts.

 

i dont know, i mean everything is snug as a bug but i guess i can only retighten everything down.

no we made sure that we never let the reservoir get low.

ill just try to redo all the connections and rebleed it. thanks tho

 

if everything checks out fine, then its gotta be your MC that you put in.

 

ok thanks ill post up tomorrow or the next day of when i get a chance to work on it

 

btw, use this.

 

It sounds like the guy who owned the car before you really frankensteined it up.

You'd better check the booster too.

I once swapped an ABS 1" MC onto a non-ABS 15/16" booster.

I had a similar problem as you. The pedal only actually worked the brakes a tiny bit. It turned out that the pushrod inside the booster was shorter in the non ABS unit and it wasn't acually pushing one the MC at much at all.

 

ok update
i finally got sometime to work on the car yesterday so i took out all the lines that we replaced and then retightened them farther tahn i thought possible and then we proceeded to bleed
SAME RESULTS
so we thought possibly it could be that one of the calipers is bad which is a definite possibility because the ones that i got had been sitting for quite some time. so we think there could be a leak somewhere in the caliper which would get air in the entire system. so one of my buddy's friends has a spare set of calipers that he knows works so we'll try those and go from there.

 

listen to tyson will you. He is trying to help you out.

 

this has nothing to do with the booster tho, its before the car is even on it wont clamp the calipers or push out against the drums

 

i didnt say it was your booster. that test singles out what your problem area would be.

look back and tell me what i said is your problem...

 

you changed the MC, so...... why wouldnt you look there for the problem??