So I've been wrestling with my car the last two weeks trying to figure out what happened to the brake system (more on that in a moment). The car was at my mother's and I only really get sundays to go down to her place and work on it, so really only worked on it two days total plus today. It's my only transportation and I had been borrowing her van, but had to give it back today so I am stuck driving a very scary vehicle. For reference this is a 1986.5 Toyota Supra w/o ABS.
It all started when I was just driving in some Atlanta traffic and the brake pedal went soft and I wouldn't get pressure until about 3/4 of the way to the floor. Now my brake wear indicators had been squealing at me for sometime so I thought maybe I had ignored them too damn long. So I changed them and no improvement.
Now at this point I test drove the car down the street and I could still lock the tires up and stop from reasonable speeds. I was just scared whatever was wrong would fail and I would end up in someone's ass (if you live in Atlanta you know how people drive and you know the traffic is shit. I'm sure there are plenty of other big cities just the same way).
So I decided to try bleeding the brakes even though I had not opened the lines or removed them at any point. Well I start with the back passenger since that is the furthest away from the master. It just dribbles out fluid. Maybe once every 20 times I bleed it there would be a nice stream (I had my mother on the pedal and I would get up and check the reservoir every 5 or so pumps). Both rear calipers were like this. When I moved to the front after 30 mins of trying to bleed the back I got a normal response from the bleeders. Nice long streams of fluid.
Now, I thought maybe I had some ridiculous amount of air in the system so I tried bleeding the pass rear for another 30 mins (I probably open and closed the valve at least 300 times) and finally got pissed off. So I decided to try adjusting the brake pedal height to see if I extended the master arm out some more if it would change things. No luck there either (extended it all the way out).
Now at some point I started wondering if the proportioning valve might be causing this issue some how. Everyone I talked to assured me it wasn't because it's just an iron block with different sized holes in it. So I listened to them and did the next best thing. I threw some parts at it.
I replaced the master cylinder in an attempt to get this shit working even though I had no reason to believe it was at fault. Well, my old one was dirty as shit and had crud (just looked like build up of dust and dirt inside the reservoir. No real big chunks) in it so I cleaned out the reservoir and hooked up the new MC. I attempted to bleed the rears, but I got the same thing as before, just a trickle of fluid. The fronts bled fine, but the brake pedal was softer and went event further to the floor.
Test drove it again and now couldn't lock the brakes up and the pedal feel was worse. Nobody carries a proportioning valve, I guess it's up to me to pull mine out and see if something is wrong inside? Has anyone heard of this happening?
Does anyone have ideas on what it could be? (BTW: there are no leaks or kinks anywhere in the brake system, I have checked numerous times).
Cliffs:
Brake Pedal feel changes
Change Brake pads - Feels the same
Bleed brakes - rear calipers don't want to bleed properly
Replace MC - bleed brakes, rears still won't bleed - brakes suck worse
Ideas?
It all started when I was just driving in some Atlanta traffic and the brake pedal went soft and I wouldn't get pressure until about 3/4 of the way to the floor. Now my brake wear indicators had been squealing at me for sometime so I thought maybe I had ignored them too damn long. So I changed them and no improvement.
Now at this point I test drove the car down the street and I could still lock the tires up and stop from reasonable speeds. I was just scared whatever was wrong would fail and I would end up in someone's ass (if you live in Atlanta you know how people drive and you know the traffic is shit. I'm sure there are plenty of other big cities just the same way).
So I decided to try bleeding the brakes even though I had not opened the lines or removed them at any point. Well I start with the back passenger since that is the furthest away from the master. It just dribbles out fluid. Maybe once every 20 times I bleed it there would be a nice stream (I had my mother on the pedal and I would get up and check the reservoir every 5 or so pumps). Both rear calipers were like this. When I moved to the front after 30 mins of trying to bleed the back I got a normal response from the bleeders. Nice long streams of fluid.
Now, I thought maybe I had some ridiculous amount of air in the system so I tried bleeding the pass rear for another 30 mins (I probably open and closed the valve at least 300 times) and finally got pissed off. So I decided to try adjusting the brake pedal height to see if I extended the master arm out some more if it would change things. No luck there either (extended it all the way out).
Now at some point I started wondering if the proportioning valve might be causing this issue some how. Everyone I talked to assured me it wasn't because it's just an iron block with different sized holes in it. So I listened to them and did the next best thing. I threw some parts at it.
I replaced the master cylinder in an attempt to get this shit working even though I had no reason to believe it was at fault. Well, my old one was dirty as shit and had crud (just looked like build up of dust and dirt inside the reservoir. No real big chunks) in it so I cleaned out the reservoir and hooked up the new MC. I attempted to bleed the rears, but I got the same thing as before, just a trickle of fluid. The fronts bled fine, but the brake pedal was softer and went event further to the floor.
Test drove it again and now couldn't lock the brakes up and the pedal feel was worse. Nobody carries a proportioning valve, I guess it's up to me to pull mine out and see if something is wrong inside? Has anyone heard of this happening?
Does anyone have ideas on what it could be? (BTW: there are no leaks or kinks anywhere in the brake system, I have checked numerous times).
Cliffs:
Brake Pedal feel changes
Change Brake pads - Feels the same
Bleed brakes - rear calipers don't want to bleed properly
Replace MC - bleed brakes, rears still won't bleed - brakes suck worse
Ideas?