I bought my son a 4-cylinder '97 EX, stick shift, as a graduation present a few years back (we're not wealthy!). He loves the car, but it's had an on-going issue with the brake pedal being - even at rest - uncomfortably close to the floor/firewall. This year he took it to a different shop for state inspection (he lives in Richmond, we're in Newport News, VA), and they wouldn't pass it due to the low brake pedal. Said it needed new front pads. Having worked on this car A LOT (mainly for the clutch hydraulics, but also the timing belt, exhaust, water pump, brakes and the driver's window lift), I doubted this would fix it. He took it to another shop, an independent Honda specialist. They also said it needed pads. Put those on. Same very low pedal. They now won't pass it either. The only suggestion they had was that the maybe pedal assembly was bent in an accident and that it would be very costly to replace. The car has a clean history and no evidence of an accident. My memory isn't all the great, but I would say that the pedal was a higher when we first got the car, but that it's always been much closer to the firewall than the gas pedal.

The brakes work reasonably well. The pedal is not soft. The car stops normally, although I would guess the ultimate stopping power is somewhat limited by the lack of pedal travel.

Any suggestions?

John

 

John I've sent you a PM.

 

Not sure what the muffinan PM'd but John have you tried adjusting the brake pedal height.

 

Can you adjust the pedal height on the EX, with the rear disc brakes? The Honda specialist spent all day yesterday trying to figure out why the pedal is so low, and came up with squat. My poor son has sunk $700 into repairs (admittedly, $150 was for a windshield, and another $300 was on clutch hydraulics), and still has a "failed" sticker on the windshield. I'd have thought a specialist would've adjusted the pedal height if it were simply a matter of loosening a lock nut and rotating the push rod one way or the other. I'm going to lend my son my '92 Miata this weekend and bring the EX back here to fiddle with. It seems to me I've been under the dash at some point during this process and didn't see any adjustability. I'll keep my fingers crossed, though!

John

 

If the pedal height adjustment would not fix the issue whatsoever then my guess would be someone probably put in an LX Master Cylinder which has a shorter push rod compared to an EX MC.

Hope this helps.

 

Sounds like the master cylinder gone bad.

 

I do have a new master cylinder on hand. Hadn't thought about someone having put in an LX one earlier. I'll get my hands on the car next week and will put in the new master and will let you know what happens.

John

 

Shorter pushrod or longer stroke/smaller bore?
IIRC the EX and LX w/ABS(rear dics) uses a 1" bore MC while drum brake cars use a 15/16"bore. Also I'm fairly sure that Honda made it idiot proof by changing one of the MC port sizes on the MC to prevent mix/matching MCs up. Unless someone has been goobering around with lines or a replacement MC, I'll default to that if the pedal is long but otherwise solid, the rear brakes are out of adjustment/self adjusters no longer work.

 

Again, not sure what muffinman PM'd......see this for a thought

 

Muffinman just PMed the name of a shop he recommended in Richmond.

I have the car here now. Drove it from Richmond. They actually have the pedal decent enough that it passed inspection finally, but it's still easily two inches closer to the floor than the manual recommends. I've got a list of what all the last mechanic tried, but I think it's out in the car at the moment. He did call NAPA to verify that it was the correct MC. He was unable to adjust the height as one might normally do as the lock nut is frozen. He thinks it shows signs of having been heated in the past, and he still suspects some sort of accident damage. I'll try to get some pics and post them. I may try to find someone selling a pedal assembly and a booster. If I have replacements on hand, I'll try cutting the old one out, unless folks think that's a bad idea. I'm not big on extensive under-dash work, though! If there's enough clearance, perhaps I could just cut out the rod and replace that.

Are the pedal adjustment pics from the factory manual? I think all I have is the Haynes. The car drove great on the 90 mile trip here. I can't believe how smoothly that 5 speed shifts with 160K on the clock.

John

 

Bleed your whole brakes. Including your Master Cylinder probably air trapped in there.

 

Yes sir