trans_am7935

iTrader: (15)

when was the last time you bled your brakes? (you might have mentioned this before but you have erased all your previous posts for the word UPDATE. Please stop doing this)

augie1209

iTrader: (1)

sorry about that, all info is on my last post. I bled the front brakes yesterday wen I put new front calipers on. I still have yet to mess with the rear brakes

dr_whigham

iTrader: (49)

Why did you delete all your posts? Now we can't see or read what was going on, or what you've been through.

Nastyc4

iTrader: (13)

its one of 2 things. Either the caliper piston is dirty/rusted and isnt retracting in the bore or the slider pins are stuck. You said you changed your calipers now i have a feeling the problem will be resolved.

My first Z28 had pretty bad brakes. You can see them in the little vid I made. The pins were siezed tight. i had to heat them until they shot out.. went right through the drywall 15 feet away lol

My M3 had a siezed caliper piston. the symptoms were at speed the brake pedal started to shudder, then the steering wheel started vibrating like a bad wheel balance and my dash started to shake up and down.
I simply got out and looked at each wheel. the brake dust on the front left was a dead giveaway. i felt close to the rotor and could feel the heat radiating from the front left rotor as well so it was obvious.

When i pulled out the pads and pushed the piston out (put a piece of wood in between and pushed the brakes) i could see the boot was torn and water got in.



Cleaned it and brakes worked flawlessly.

unfortunately the rust had penetrated the chrome like sleeeve on the piston and it was only a matter of time before the rust came back and it happened again. so i just replaced it with these

Kevin97ss

did you replace the brake hose to the calipers? an internally damaged hose can act like a one way valve.

augie1209

iTrader: (1)

I deleted previous posts and summed everything up in one post what is currently happening. As previously stated, I got the car and the caliper pins had seized in the brackets. I did not want to mess with trying to heat it up and get the pins out, as this had not been my first fbody that has done this. So I replaced the brackets and pins, also while I was at it I replaced the pads and rotors because they were junk. Bled brakes, went to seat the pads, and they were not releasing while driving. Replaced the front calipers and the same thing is present, no releasing of the piston.

Kevin97SS, I had also read that somewhere else as well about the hoses, I might do that today while I am waiting for my new master cylinder. It had pretty good pressure while bleeding the brakes, but if its acting as a one way valve then that would make complete sense and I wouldn't be able to tell just by looking at it.

It may seem like a waste to replace all these parts, but I plan on keeping this car for awhile. The car sat for 1 year, not driven just started up everyday or so. I figured somethings were going to need replacing when I bought it. It only has 103k and I bought it for 3200 so I had some room to work.

Again thanks for all the input.

augie1209

iTrader: (1)

Since its ABS and that is basically the combination valve, are there any other valves that could possibly be clogged? I still think it maybe the hoses since it sat for so long, but still curious since it is both sides.

Thanks

doran_the_man

Are the driver and passenger calipers switched? To tell, make sure the bleeder valves are pointing up. Ask me how I know that they will lock up the brakes .

3 pedal SS

iTrader: (1)

kevin has the answer for you^^^

Wile E's 98

I agree with with kevin. Was my first thought.

augie1209

iTrader: (1)

Okay guys, so I threw the new front hoses in and nothing different happened. However, at this point I was just staring at the thing for about 20 minutes getting frustrated, I realized top little clip-in-bracket in the top of the caliper was not installed. I went ahead and clipped these in real quick to see if it would make any difference. It did actually free up the wheels a tad and I was able to free spin the wheels. But I still feel like there is still to much pressure on the pads while my foot is off the brake. When I took it for another test drive right after this, the dragging noise was again present but not as loud. Any other ideas suggestions?? Only other thing I can think of is the master cylinder. Thanks for the input guys

Kevin97ss

Was the fluid contaminated? When you initially pulled the master cylinder cap off how did the seal in the cap look?

augie1209

iTrader: (1)

replaced the master cylinder last night, need to go back and bench bleed it (oops), but the fluid was contaminated pretty bad it was dirty and very green (as opposed to the clean yellowish-clear of fresh fluid)

augie1209

iTrader: (1)

Okay guys, I believe I have opened up a whole new can of worms on this one. First off, I am in the middle of training to be a Tech, but have by no means mastered everything there is to know about this stuff, especially with brakes and abs systems which I don't prefer. Anyways, I finally got the front brakes to stop dragging, after replacing and inspecting all the parts, I would say the problem was in the MC. The fluid in the MC looked extremely contaminated and it would not surprise me if all the seals and springs were destroyed in there.

So I bled the brakes a few different times after bench bleeding the MC while bolted up to the booster. Then I remembered that since this system was ABS, it probably needed a GM scanner or Snapon of some sort. I did the best I could manually bleeding. Once I got the car back down and started up, when I put in reverse or drive the engine starts revving as if I'm power braking about to do a burn out. Turned the car off, then back on put in drive and now lights start flickering my A/C starts turning off and on (I can tell because my clutch is going out and it makes a sheering sound) and then the red BRAKE light and TCS lights started flickering.

SOOO... what do you guys think? Could this all be caused by air trapped in the ABS module, causing it to prematurely set off TCS??? No to sure why it wants to cycle on and off the A/C, not to sure how it connects with this problem.

Thanks Guys, worst comes to worst I will send into dealership to have fixed, just kind of discouraging when you are training to be a tech and you cant fix your own car.

augie1209

iTrader: (1)

well last nnight and this morning I had to jump the battery so I have a feeling that the electrical flickering may be the battery not holding a charge

spy2520

iTrader: (3)

Sometimes when the car loses power the engine will rev when you start it until it learns idle. either that or you have a major vacuum leak (brake booster hose maybe). dont know why it wouldnt do it until you went into reverse though.

Also as far as bleeding the ABS i think there is a way to do it by raising the vehicle up, putting in drive, then hit the brakes, ABS should kick on. i could be wrong about that though.

augie1209

iTrader: (1)

Okay guys got an update. So I re-bled brakes one last time to see if that was the issue, took on test drive, got back and front rotors were smoking. So I had the car towed to the sister dealership that I work for. Well the cars battery has been dying and first thing they wanted to tell me was that after jump-starting it that it needed a new alternator because it wouldn't idle down. DUMBASSES, I was even able to get it to idle down in my driveway before I had it towed. I decided to go ahead and pick me up a kg3 alt out of a Escalade though since our cs130's are prone to failure. $50 at lkq, and dealership with my employee discount wanted to charge me $600 (and that's probably for another faulty cs130 haha). They also wanted to charge me $1000 for a new ac compressor and set up, when all I originally wanted was for them to figure out this brake issue.

So, the only other two solutions I can come up with is either the ABS module/motor or the brake lines bent/clogged.

Again at this point I have replaced the following:

- Master Cylinder
- Front brake hoses to the calipers
- Both Front Calipers
- Pads
- Rotors
- Caliper mounting brackets
- Brake hardware

I picked up a abs module (non tcs since my car doesn't have it) for $50 which came off a Firebird with only 16,000 miles on it. I am hoping this fixes the problem. My guess is that maybe the solenoids in the ABS froze up/seized from all the contaminated brake fluid sitting stagnate for 1 year, hence not allowing for proper return pressure to the Master Cylinder.

I'll keep you guys update with the progress. Meanwhile if any1 has any input or comments feel free.

Thanks

augie1209

iTrader: (1)

just curious guys, this abs module I am going to install is from a 2002 Firebird, am I going to need a scan tool to reprogram this module for my car? It is for a non-tcs car and mine isn't, but since the cars probably will have different gear ratios I didn't know if i'de need to program to my specs.

Thanks