Hi everyone and thanks in advance for reading this,

Did my front pads and everything went ok at least I think so. The thing is my car brakes a little bit worse now. It takes more length to come at a complete stop. Also the pedal feels a little bit more "squishy" at the end. The car eventually brakes, but my question is if I got air inside the lines would the car still brake anyway or would it render the braking system useless? Im worried that I've might secrewed up somehow...

Note: i didnt open bleeder valves when retracting the piston; just took the cap out of the reservoir, syphoned a little and then allowed the remaining fluid to rise when retracting the piston

Thanks in advance for any help!!
j_ripper19

 

A small amount of air in the system will not render the brakes useless, but will make them squishy. A lot of air in the system WILL make your brakes useless. Since you said it does feel a little squishy, I would recommend bleeding your brake lines, or while you are at it, do a brake system flush (supposed to be done about every two years anyway I believe). This is relatively easy to do, pretty cheap, and you should be able to find a DIY writup if you don't know how to do it already. After bleeding the brakes, your pedal feel should improve as well as your stopping ability. It doesn't take a ton of air to make it feel squishy, so even if only a little got in some how, that could be your problem.

There are other possible problems, but if so they were probably there before you changed your brakes. I would suggest starting with the brake bleed or flush and then posting back to say whether it fixed the problem or not.

 

Thanks for the reply. Another question though:

I'm gonna bleed my brakes just in case, but I checked the service records and the previous owner installed "Speedbleeder" the recipe has a note saying this makes the bleeding so much easier. Problem is I don't know how to bleed with these f**kers, just the "high tech power bleed" method. Actually I dont even know what speedbleeder are...

Anyone has experience in bleeding brakes with "speedbleeder"?

thanks again
j_ripper19

 

I haven't used them before, but looks like it just has the one way valve incorporated into the valve so air can't come back in. Hook up a hose to the end of the valve and run it into a container. You should be able to pump the brakes without closing the valve between pumps.

http://www.speedbleeder.com/install.htm

 

hum sounds interesting. A one man thing without a power bleeder... I'll follow their procedure and then post the results. If it doesnt work, I can always go with the classic power bleeder. Looks cool though and I like the fact that it doesn't pressurize the whole system at like 15 psi which puts some strain into the lines. But i guess if they were really good , you would see more people using them :P

Anyway I'll bleed and let you know. Thanks for the help tdrill

If anyone has any more suggestions please post!

j_ripper19

 

Its possible that the pads you used are softer than the ones you took off. If you didnt take all the fluid out of the resevoir or bleed the brakes they should be alright unless there was a bubble in there from a previous bleed. Id just give it some time and investigate what kind of pads you got-if they are a soft pad and try to find out what kind of pads your old ones were.

 

I was thinking the same thing as onepoint8tee.

I changed mine recently, and they actually seemed to take a few miles for everything to settle back in to a more normal "feel". Or maybe your pads aren't as good as what you took off.

 

Thanks for the replies.

New pads are PBR deluxe from ecstuning (are they soft?). I'll give another week and see after they get bedded in.

Thanks for all the help!