Campeck

We recently ( kinda) took my brakes apart and sent them to be powdercoated. we Also bought a rebuild kit and rebuilt the brakes. And on re-installing them..we bled them..twice. I didn't really pay attention to the way the piston sat with the pads.
and now my brakes are MUSHY! well...they HAVE been ever since we replaced them.
And on pushing the brakes in tarheel's S they are almost solid. could the brake piston be screwing the brakes up? should I just rebleed?
thanks.

xsboost90

check all four and make sure they are sitting correctly. Check your lines to see if any are bulging or rubbed through etc. Im guessing they were bled recently so used fluid is out.

Jfrahm

How is your master cylinder? Often bleeding the brakes ruins old MC seals. The piston travels farther than normal, and corrosion on the piston tears up the seals. Some people suggest putting a block of wood under the brake pedal so it does not travel too far when bellding brakes on an older car.

Other than that, you might just have air in the system and a good power bleed will cure it.

FSAEracer03

Sometimes they can just be a PITA to fully bleed. Crack open the bleeders, gravity bleed them. It's obvious that the problem is there, so just let good ol' gravity do its thing for about 5-10 miutes and close them.

austin944

The notch in the top of the piston has to be oriented correctly with respect to the caliper body. There is a picture in the WSM. But I doubt that would cause mushy brakes.

Campeck

well...the piston has a big moon shape notch in it...This needs to be facing where?

and cheap "paint" drawings that someone would mind showing me? lol!

IMB951

well, after a long, detailed analysis, I came up with this diagram

Hope this helps

Yabo

he went into the woods? or that picture where he went ontot he grass when "trail braking"?

shmucklebuckle

incredible illustration!

tifosiman

I think the proper term is "brail braking".

Luis de Prat

Campeck, there's some good info on dealing with mushy brakes here.

xsboost90

Did you say GRRRRRAIL?!!

Charlotte944

For the single piston floating caliper brakes, the "notch" in the piston must be facing into the the direction of rotor rotation.

For the front calipers the "notch" would be facing "Down."

The reason for this "notch" is to put more clamping force on the trailing edge of the brake pads which will make the pads wear evenly.

Campeck

ok..thank you.
Ill change those when It stays warm for more than an hour around here...lol.

Swagger93

It took my friend and I 4 hours to get all the air out of a dual circut system on a 1989 toyota pickup we did brakes on once. it just sucks sometimes.

when you go and bleed brakes it is true you will often blow seals on the MC or other calipers. it is especially true when working with pressure bleeding clutch systems.