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Fading pedal?


3pt1lumina

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Slammed on my brakes in my Lumina today and the pedal is funny now.

 

As we all know, W-body brakes suck and the pedal is kinda low all the time. My pedal feels normal when I first hit the brakes then as I slow the car down the pedal sinks further and further to the floor. It's been doing this on occasion everytime I slam the brakes then it takes about 3 weeks to get normal again...then the next time I slam on the brakes this happens.

 

Is this my master cylinder? It's original (15 years old) or is it something else?

 

Rear calipers/pads/rotors have 700miles on them

Front calipers/pads/rotors have 15k on them

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Nah I checked all brake lines front to back, side to side and they are all completely dry. The master cylinder doesn't lose any brake fluid at all.

 

This is why I am so stumped??????

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Nah I checked all brake lines front to back, side to side and they are all completely dry. The master cylinder doesn't lose any brake fluid at all.

 

This is why I am so stumped??????

 

Well there is also the posibility of wear on the brake pads. If you REALLY got on them, and you have soft pads, they could have worn down by queit a bit.

 

The lower your pads get, the lower the pedal goes.

 

You could have air in the system.

 

If you didn't have good brake fluid it could have compressed, and leave air in the lines. This has been known to happen (rarely).

 

Hrm, Vaccum booster diaphram could have punctured just slightly.

 

For an easy test to see if the master cylinder is in decent shape, depress the brake pedal with the car off. Then start the vehical. The pedal should decent just slightly.

 

Low brake fluid.

 

Oh theres more, I'm just not sure what.

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Nah I checked all brake lines front to back, side to side and they are all completely dry. The master cylinder doesn't lose any brake fluid at all.

 

This is why I am so stumped??????

 

Well there is also the posibility of wear on the brake pads. If you REALLY got on them, and you have soft pads, they could have worn down by queit a bit.

 

The lower your pads get, the lower the pedal goes.

 

 

For an easy test to see if the master cylinder is in decent shape, depress the brake pedal with the car off. Then start the vehical. The pedal should decent just slightly.

 

.

 

I'll check both and see what I come up with. thanks man!

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Well my pedal was very low/soft recently..I changed the front pads at it firmed up nicely..Although the pads were not wore that much (About half way) it made a tremendous difference in the feel of the pedal and the stopping power..

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I'm going to sound stupid here, but when's the last time you checked the fluid level? :D

 

Its ok man. Here's the progression of what I did from the start of my fading pedal....

 

-Check fluid level

-Pull every wheel to see if I had a leaking caliper (Never thought about looking at the brake pads dumbass I am)

-Checked all brake lines for leaks

-Checked vacuum line coming off of the booster.

 

 

Yeah, I haven't had time to conduct those two tests mentioned previously in this thread; tomorrow is diagnosis day (hopefully lol)

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