Spongey brake pedal

[scooby seb]

Evening guys

In July I did a trackday at snetterton, very hot day and on the last session I lost my brake pedal, still had brakes but very poor pedal and spongey, just assumed I'd boiled the fluid as I do like a bit of late breaking

Last month I did an activity day at North Weald so changed the fluid to castrol SRF, recommend to my by the race mechanic at work, he runs it in all my bosses race cars and won't use anything else as he said if it can do 6hrs round Spa your not going to get much better, but pedal still felt just as bad, stops the car but no feel to it, I've just swapped the master cylinder (2nd hand) and rebleed the brakes 4 times, but pedal is still the same?????
I'm running yellow stuff pads and braided lines front and rear.

Has anybody got any ideas as I'm off to cadwell Sunday and want to get it sorted

Cheers in advance Scott

[MartinF]

Castrol SRF is a very good fluid.

First thing I'd do is put some decent pads in, and whilst doing that check that all the sliders are free.

[scooby seb]

Would the sliders give you loss in brake pedal? It had a lovely firm pedal and now you can pretty much push down to the stop

[bobhatton]

Get rid of the crap pads and never use anything made by EBC.

You need Porterfield pads for the best brakes.

[scooby seb]

It's not a fade problem tho it's a pressure problem???

[abovetherim]

How are you bleeding the brakes? Sorry if this questions your abilities but are you doing furthest from the master and working closer ice n/s rear then o/s rear etc. I also prefer to pressure bleed to prevent damaging the seals in the master.
Also is the replacement cylinder a turbo with yours being a n/a? Different bore

[Torero]

Has it got ABS? I've heard that the auxiliaries in the system can trap air if not bled properly.

Only what I've heard I can't honestly say that I've experienced it.

[bobhatton]

EBC pads just burn the brakes and boil the fluid.
Change the pads to Porterfield, change all the fluid again as it will have boiled and all will work great unless the callipers have had it.

[scooby seb]

Quick up date, managed to get the pedal back, would never of thought it but I had a seized osf slider, freed off and hey presto nice solid pedal again, ordered a new set of sliders just to be on the safe side, cheers for the tips and advice

Where can I get these porter field pads from. And what sort of money are they??

[tonym]

i am new to mr2s and my car is in the bodyshop getting a respray at the moment but my brake pedal does seem quite soft to me i have never drove a mr2 before this one but is loads softer than my other car and seems like i have to press it quite far down so im wondering if i have the same problem i have no idea what the osf slider is though could you help cheers mate

[bobhatton]

Quick up date, managed to get the pedal back, would never of thought it but I had a seized osf slider, freed off and hey presto nice solid pedal again, ordered a new set of sliders just to be on the safe side, cheers for the tips and advice

Where can I get these porter field pads from. And what sort of money are they??

http://porterfield-brakes.com/index.php

[scooby seb]

i am new to mr2s and my car is in the bodyshop getting a respray at the moment but my brake pedal does seem quite soft to me i have never drove a mr2 before this one but is loads softer than my other car and seems like i have to press it quite far down so im wondering if i have the same problem i have no idea what the osf slider is though could you help cheers mate

Hi there, the sliders live on the caliper carrier and the osf is off side front or drivers side front, if you jack the front of the car up and remove the front wheels to get access to the calipers, then get hold of the caliper and you should be able to slightly move it side to side, but to get a better idea, remove the caliper by removing the 2 14mm bolts once the caliper is removed and out the way you are left with just the caliper carrier that sits over the disc, the sliders are on this part and are the piece that the caliper bolts to with the 14mm bolts, to check wether they are seized get a pair of pliers/moll grips and grip the 17mm nut ( which is the end of the slider) and try and move it in and out, if there is no movement then yours are seized, easy enough to change and kits are on eBay, you might want to give your brakes a fluid change to to help bring the pedal back

Hope this is of some help

[tonym]

its a lot of help thankyou very much for the detailed explanation when my car is back i will definitely try this cheers mate

[scooby seb]

Sorry, I got the caliper bolt size wrong, they are 12mm not 14mm