Squishy brakes STILL.

[hondaguy305]

it might be your brake booster

[RetailHell]

I'm just gonna snag 2 pairs of speed bleeders. Apparently it's a bleed valve with a ball and spring in it. Basically you just open it 1/2 way and go pump your brakes a tad and close it. Easiest way to do it solo... Still gonna end up paying 60-70.

Aquirm tubing
Turkey baster
A decent jack (the one i have takes so much effort to even get the car up.)
4x speed bleeders.
Must not forget brake fluid, yippie.

Yay. So, accords have 4 brakes?

[YK86]

You can just buy a one man bleeder. The cheap ones are a clear tube with a one way check valve on the end and only cost $10. Then you can see the air/dirty fluid coming out and you can use it on other cars in the future. The money you save VS speed bleeders can be put towards the master cylinder if that does end up being the problem.

Be careful with the rear bleeders on drums. They tend to snap off requiring the whole wheel cylinder to be replaced. It's only $20 to replace but still an added cost. But then again, it might be because I live where they salt the roads in the winter.

[RetailHell]

Ended up buying the gun thingie as per id rather be able to have a tool to use on other cars than buy stuff for a car i dont plan on keeping and a hydr jack for 3 tons (lol the 2 ton ones seem so flimsy...) some brake fluid rags and seafoam

[RetailHell]

Uhm... Yay? My brakes work. Only the left driver wheel bled properly, unless im missing something? The other 3 wheels kept pulling in air bubbles for days end so i just decided to close them up, clean up and test drive it. The brakes are WAY more responsive now, they dont sink into the floor so its not my MC... but those 3 other ones that pull air bubbles...? is it some stupid ABS thing?

[YK86]

There shouldn't be any bubbles. I just did a brake fluid flush on a friend's 90 Accord since the old fluid was really bad. I used about 3/4quart (750ml) of new brake fluid to do the whole system. I'd say 1 to 1.5 full reservoirs of brake fluid per corner until the old stuff turned to new clear fluid. If there was air up in the system, that's how much you'd have to pump to get all the air out. How many times did you fill up the reservoir per corner??

[RetailHell]

2 bottles of dot 3. It kept pullin clean after the 2nd bottle so i just returned the stuff i pulled out back to the well and capped it.

I kept pumping the gun and it just kept pulling air non-stop... i did this for a good 20-30 minutes per side and was clueless. I assumed I had a ruptured brake line but i closed it off and got in my car, started it up and just roughed the brakes as hard as i could for a good 2 minutes to try to trigger a fluid leak so i could spot it but nothing happened. I checked the MC and engine bay's brake lines they were all clean.

I figured if i couldn't find any leaks after pressuring the brakes THAT much and looking around there wasn't anything I could do, except maybe bleed the whole system, put the car on blocks and replace every inch of the brake system, but I dont want to do that because i dont have the time nor space. I just want to get the car fixed so it's reliable that I can sell it.

I don't know about other people but I dislike selling lemons, it just isn't right.

[mike890]

if you keep on seeing air through ur hose, it might be that air is coming in from the bleeder threads or the hose is not on tight enough and air is getting in.

[Oldblueaccord]

If its a Might vac hand pump the hoses do not hold onto the cup very well so you may have a small leak involved there. I don't pump it up to much just a few slow steady pumps buy hand so not as to stir up stuff.

I still have just as good luck with the 2 man pump pump hold method.

[RetailHell]

It's the OEM brand plastic pump from autozone and as for it being the threads, might have been. I didn't bother to seal the threads with grease or thread tape. Well, I sort of did TRY that, but it didn't help it so I figured it wouldn't help the other 2. Fun stuff. Irony is when you buy a car and see it working decent and assume its good un, then you work on it and start seeing little things wrong. I found about 1 CM chunk missing from the rear left tire's wall around the bead area. Looks like someone squirted it with acid, haha and walmart quotes me for crappy tires @ 300 to 400 bucks... eef that.

[RetailHell]

is it possible to have the calipers not properly sealed that they pull air in or somethin? Cause a Co-worker suggested that... and I think it may be?

[4GFalken20]

could be a caliper going bad.

[batever]

Uhm... Yay? My brakes work. Only the left driver wheel bled properly, unless im missing something? The other 3 wheels kept pulling in air bubbles for days end so i just decided to close them up, clean up and test drive it. The brakes are WAY more responsive now, they dont sink into the floor so its not my MC... but those 3 other ones that pull air bubbles...? is it some stupid ABS thing?

Ok, I believe there is a proper sequence for bleeding the brakes, you can't do them in just any order and get the correct results. Probably that has something to do with it. I'll look later at my manual and tell you what it says.

But--You have ABS and didn't mention it?--but bleeding ABS brakes takes some different things into consideration, I've heard. (I never bothered to find out how, because, although I wish I had an ABS car, I don't). Not sure why, but I hear bleeding ABS systems is different. You should look into it.

The ABS system has some kind of secondary reservoir that the automatic ABS brake pumper solenoid thingie uses to "take over" the braking when the system detects the need for ABS. So you should find out the proper procedures so you don't mess with that secondary reservoir, is my guess, and to make sure that the system is bled both in the lines and in all of the reservoirs.

some of that is guesswork on my part, but there's my 2 cents.

glad to hear the brakes are working pretty well for you now, though.

re: a cheap way to bleed standard brakes by yourself (or on a clutch line), it's possible to just take a 2x4 and place it between the brake pedal and the front of the driver seat. Then slide the seat forward to clamp it down, creating pressure in the line. Then go outside and do your bleeder valve thing. Then go back inside, release the brake pedal by sliding the seat back, then repressurize the pedal with the 2x4.

repeat until happy.


this is how I do all my hydraulic line bleeding on my car. of course, i've never bled my brakes, just the clutch. But it will work on brakes too.

costs no money, just a little more time for walking back and forth, and you can do it without anyone's assistance. If you are having trouble sealing the threads on your brake bleeder kit, I would go with using this method as you will have no chance of pulling air back up in the system (a 2x4 keeps pressing down pretty much perfectly as long as you want, whereas a person can mess up, particularly if they don't understand perfectly what you are trying to accomplish).

I would still find out more about bleeding ABS if you have it, though.

[HondaFan81]

erh, i bled them by having a friend pump the pedal while i had the nut open then tightened it and added fluid...

If your statement above truly represents what you did, then you did the procedure incorrectly. You can not have your friend pump the brake pedal WHILE the nut remains open. Each time he lets off the brake, you're sucking air back into the system. You have the friend pump the pedal a few times WHILE nut remains CLOSED, then pop the nut open a bit and retighten after fluid flows out. Watch for no bubble condition after a few times of doing this, then move on to another caliper.

Here is the brake bleeding sequence as well and instructions:

http://media.honda.co.uk/car/owner/m.../400/13-10.pdf

[Accrdwgnguy]

I had really crappy squishy brakes, then I got an aftermarket master cylinder...still squishy...then I bought a Honda OEM master cylinder....brakes feel brand new!

its most likely your master cylinder.

Oh really? Has anyone else had bad luck with aftermarket master cylinders? I have gone thru 2 now and bleed the brakes many times, both the honda approved way and the traditional way. I still have no pedal.