I did an ITR front brake swap today along with new calipers, pads, and rotors in the rear as well. After the swap I have horrible brake pressure and when pushing the brake you can hear air escaping from somewhere. No fluid is leaking, and the air sounds like it's coming out of the ABS unit. The brakes have been bled to death with no help. Any idea's?

<U>UPDATE</U>

Alright I just bled them again this time with a vacume gun and I still don't have any pressure and I can still hear the hissing sound of losing air. Any idea's?

I've also swapped the GSR calipers back on and I still have no pressure with the hissing sound.




Modified by SlammedDC2 at 1:29 PM 5/5/2008

 

I'm not to sure, but I plan on purchasing the same setup from user ''brakeexpert''

I'm sure you could send him a PM and he would know.

GL

 

I bought it from him, I sent him a PM but of course its 1130 on a freaking sunday so...yeah.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SlammedDC2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I bought it from him, I sent him a PM but of course its 1130 on a freaking sunday so...yeah.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Hhahaha yeah..

I'm sitting here flipping through the Haynes manual in chapter 9 about brakes..

i'll let you know if i find something..

 

Cool man thanks. I don't have a haynes. I wonder if my chilton has it. Let me go look

 

How the hell does my Chilton book not have anything on brakes for Acura period

 

Because Chilton and Haynes are a waste of money, Helms is the ONLY decent book with torque specs and all.

Thats a bit vague, there are many things to check. When you installed, did you alter softlines? You can easily have a speck of dirt between the hardline and softline and cause a leak. Your bleeding sequence, its RR, FL, RL, FR, thats what you did right? Are the front calipers' bleeders pointing upward and not downward? What was your bleeding procedure? How much hose did you use? How much fluid have you gone through? Does your book give any special instructions on bleeding with ABS? how tight are your banjo bolt connections?

 

PM'd

 

Alright I just bled them again this time with a vacume gun and I still don't have any pressure and I can still hear the hissing sound of losing air. Any idea's?

 

if it sounds like an air leak it probably is. check the brake booster.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by DirtyBirdJR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">if it sounds like an air leak it probably is. check the brake booster.</TD></TR></TABLE>
Check it in what manner? How.
Sorry still kinda new at brakes short of changing pads and rotors.

 

you need to explain what is going on better. Try manually bleeding it instead of vacuum so you can get the sense of what is going wrong. If you are bleeding (manually) properly and you should feel the pedal inscrease in pressure as you bleed through each caliper. If done right the pedal should reach a firm point and should stay that way with every pump. If you release the pedal the pedal goes beyond that point then there is air. Go get a helms/haynes or even downlod one where there is a good troubleshooting section which will break it all down.


first off why did you do the swap? were youre brakes gone or were you simply upgrading? what did you change and what is the condition of the parts that you swapped in.

and where is the hissing happening? within the calipers? Master cylinder? brake pedal?

if there are no leaks then air is still trapped in your system. Just like what brake expert said check is you installed the calipers properly. Just ensure the bleeder valve is facing the top side of the caliper, where this could be a major problem because air rises and youll never be able to get the air out if the bleeder is on the bottom side.

 

U might of gotten air in the line, might need to bench bleed the mastercylinder.
How long did u leave the lines open between switching calipers?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ozrednsx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">you need to explain what is going on better. Try manually bleeding it instead of vacuum so you can get the sense of what is going wrong. If you are bleeding (manually) properly and you should feel the pedal inscrease in pressure as you bleed through each caliper. If done right the pedal should reach a firm point and should stay that way with every pump. If you release the pedal the pedal goes beyond that point then there is air. Go get a helms/haynes or even downlod one where there is a good troubleshooting section which will break it all down.


first off why did you do the swap? were youre brakes gone or were you simply upgrading? what did you change and what is the condition of the parts that you swapped in.

and where is the hissing happening? within the calipers? Master cylinder? brake pedal?

if there are no leaks then air is still trapped in your system. Just like what brake expert said check is you installed the calipers properly. Just ensure the bleeder valve is facing the top side of the caliper, where this could be a major problem because air rises and youll never be able to get the air out if the bleeder is on the bottom side.

</TD></TR></TABLE>
What else do you want to know? I thought I explained everything pretty good.
I manually bled the brakes last night for at least an hour with no luck. The pedal will get firm if you pump it but once you take pressure off of it for even 2-3 seconds and re-apply pressure it will go all the way to the floor. Also with the hissing it happens when you apply the brakes before pressure is built. If you keep pumping them the hissing goes away until you let the pedal out and give it that 2-3 seconds. Then it comes right back. I have bled brakes before with no problem so I know I'm pretty sure I'm doing it right, just don't understand this situation.

The hissing sounds like it is coming from the passenger caliper, the ABS unit and the MC. It almost sounds like it's moving but it's not. To me it sounds like it's coming from the ABS unit, to one of my friends it sounds like the pass. caliper, and to my other friend it sounds like the MC.

The swap was done because one of the rear calipers was seized so I figured if I was changing one I would just go ahead and change both. As for the fronts I did the swap for the upgrade in size.

The calipers are installed correctly (or at least I hope they are). The caliper with the R is on the passenger side and L is on the driver side. The bleeder valves are on the top of the calipers.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jdmland &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">U might of gotten air in the line, might need to bench bleed the mastercylinder.
How long did u leave the lines open between switching calipers?</TD></TR></TABLE>
I don't think there could be any air left in the lines between the manual bleeding last night and the vacuum today. The vacuum I am using will hold 12 oz. of fluid. With my buddy making sure the MC stays at the right level I vacuum out the 12 oz. catch and then move to the next caliper. RR, LR, RF, LF. I have close to a gallon of used brake fluid that has been bled out between the manual and vacuum.

The complete rear brakes were off the car for about 45 minutes as I had to take the old ones in to Orieley's for the core and bring the used pads and rotors in for the one time free replacement. The fronts were only off for a minute as it doesn't take that long to swap the calipers over and put the pads in.

How do you bench bleed the MC?


The only thing I can think of is to replace the MC.

 

Just FYI, the sequence is RR, FL, RL, FR. thats rear right, front left, rear left, front right, and it does make a difference. Did you bench bleed the master cylinder? because if not, it can take forever to bleed.

Heres a half assed way to bench bleed it. take the MC off, fill it with fluid. it will be dripping out the two connections. press the stick (or bore) about 6 or 7 times. this will purge any air from the MC. if you feel it not get firmer after the first few times, the MC may be leaking. while its still sort of dripping, connect it to the car (beware brake fluid ruins paint, get towels and ****). WHen you bleed the car, at no point should the brake fluid level go below the bottom of the resovoir, or you can introduce air into the system and the MC will need to be bench bled again.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by BrakeExpert &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Just FYI, the sequence is RR, FL, RL, FR. thats rear right, front left, rear left, front right, and it does make a difference. Did you bench bleed the master cylinder? because if not, it can take forever to bleed.

Heres a half assed way to bench bleed it. take the MC off, fill it with fluid. it will be dripping out the two connections. press the stick (or bore) about 6 or 7 times. this will purge any air from the MC. if you feel it not get firmer after the first few times, the MC may be leaking. while its still sort of dripping, connect it to the car (beware brake fluid ruins paint, get towels and ****). WHen you bleed the car, at no point should the brake fluid level go below the bottom of the resovoir, or you can introduce air into the system and the MC will need to be bench bled again. </TD></TR></TABLE>
Okay I didn't know about the pattern in which to bleed, I was told it was farthest away first and and make your way around to the closest one. I will re-bleed tonight along with bench bleed. I just picked up a MC from a friend, Hopefully the combination of both will get this car back on the road tonight. Thanks and I will post an update of what happened.

 

If you are bleeding and producing no air, I see two possible scenarios.

1) (Most likely) There is air trapped high in the lines thaty compresses when you manually bleed, but then reexpands when the brakes are released.

2) Your MC is bad. This would usually lead to a sinking pedal.

When I replaced my soft brake lines, I rapidly plugged the lines to minimize the amount of air that entered.

This air hissing that you hear, does it occur if the car is of after the booster is purged of vacuum?

 

Even if u use a vaccum on the lines, dosen't mean you are getting all the air out of the mastercylinder, it is possible u got air in the matercylinder, just bench bleed it, or if u get another one (new or used), u will need to bench bleed it before u install it., search bench bleeding, its not hard at all.

 

try checking your line(dont know what its called but its on the line that goes in to your brake booster) last time on my bro civic he had no pressure on his brakes too check that it was going the wrong way.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Dogginator &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">If you are bleeding and producing no air, I see two possible scenarios.

1) (Most likely) There is air trapped high in the lines thaty compresses when you manually bleed, but then reexpands when the brakes are released.

2) Your MC is bad. This would usually lead to a sinking pedal.

When I replaced my soft brake lines, I rapidly plugged the lines to minimize the amount of air that entered.

This air hissing that you hear, does it occur if the car is of after the booster is purged of vacuum?</TD></TR></TABLE>
The hissing sound is with the car on or off. There is nothing that stops the sounds short of pressurizing the brakes. But once you let off the pedal for 2-3 seconds the pressure is gone and the sound is back.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jdmland &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Even if u use a vaccum on the lines, dosen't mean you are getting all the air out of the mastercylinder, it is possible u got air in the matercylinder, just bench bleed it, or if u get another one (new or used), u will need to bench bleed it before u install it., search bench bleeding, its not hard at all.</TD></TR></TABLE>
I'm going to toss a new (used) MC on tonight if I get off work in time.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by pokmijn &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">try checking your line(dont know what its called but its on the line that goes in to your brake booster) last time on my bro civic he had no pressure on his brakes too check that it was going the wrong way.</TD></TR></TABLE>
Thanks man, I'll check that too tonight

 

sounds like you have trapped air somewhere in your system. I ran into a similar situation where, just like your case, the pedal would be firm and once released the pressure would be gone. Although i dont have abs in my car i tried everything new hoses, new master cylinder, different brake booster, different PP valve, rebuilt the calipers ground up, even took it to a tech. Well after literally 20 bottles of honda brake fluid i realized that my rear calipers were in the wrong position. i had to switch L to R and R to L so that my bleeder valves were on top.



Also once you have bench bled the master cylinder off the car there is also another way you can get air out of the master cylinder once you have installed it. Once it is installed and the fittings are tightened slightly loosen one of the fittings so fluid as well as air can escape. While someone else is depresses the pedal air should bubble out and make sure you tighten the fitting before he releases the pedal or else air will just find its way back in. Do this a couple of times to both fittings until no bubbles appear. Then from there bleed your brakes and things should get better.

hope you get it fixed

 

oz, just to let ya know, you can actually mount them the other way. The only problem is that you have to disconnect the caliper from the bracket and tilt it 180 (towels are key) just so that the bleeder is pointing upward to bleed it. You'll need some old pads to shove in the caliper's throat to keep the piston from coming out. the reason for all this is so...yes, you can use your stock e-brake. are you using a drum or disc spindle?

 

dont want to get off topic...

but thats a great idea wish i knew that before haha... but i actually it working by now. i am using disc spindles.

4x 114 96 type r components... i actually flipped them and had to custom mount the ebrake lines and works perfectly. also have to cut off the brake pad indicators to get the pads to fit.

 

Put on the new MC last night only to find the same problem. So tonight we will be flipping the front calipers 180º up to try and get all this damn air out so maybe I can actually drive it again. Thanks for everyones help so far and hopefully my next post will be a picture with the new brakes covered up by my wheels being put back on the car.

 

The car will be on it's way to the mechanics shop tomorrow. Nothing I did fixed it. Once I find out what the problem is I will post up for future search's.

Thanks for everyones input on this.