brake problem

[john]

I have a 93 Corolla without ABS. Brake light is on and the pedal is soft. I replaced the master cyl (after bench bleeding) and bled the brakes for 2 hours (1 quart of brake fluid) and still the same results. Also I checked the front and rear brakes. Rears were adjusted properly and the front inboard pads were wearing prematurely. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

[boroEF]

did u install the master cylinder urself?

upon installing, u dont only have to bleed from the calipers but also from the master cylinder itself....did u do that as well?

[wunderboy]

The break light being on would lead me to look at the E-Break. It may be stuck or something. As for the soft pedal...

[john]

I installed it myself. I bench bled, but i didn't bleed it at the master cyl. Do i just undo the two lines and bend two brake lines into the resevoir and pump the brakes? Also in the manual they said I needed a special tool to adjust the clearance of the push rod? The e-brake works great! Thanks for the advice.

[Chris Corolla S]

My brakes are in need of new pads and shoes. I have let it go for a while. Eventually the pedal got even softer and the brake light came on. I was like wtf? my E-brake works fine. It turned out because my pads and shoes were so worn, the brake fluid was low(duh) so I topped it off and the light went off.

I don't think you just need to ad fluid of course, but this shows that the brake light can come on for a fluid issue, not just for the E-brake idiot-light.

[wunderboy]

Well thanx for sett'n me streight there chris.... thats what I get for never owning a car newer than 1988....

[Chris Corolla S]

Originally posted by wunderboy
Well thanx for sett'n me streight there chris.... thats what I get for never owning a car newer than 1988....

Tell me about it. I went from an '84 Camry to a 2001 Corolla and I'm still learning new shit. At first I spent a lot of time reading the Hayne's Manual and staring under the hood scratching my head. The car has no distributer, no spark plug wires, and coil packs right over the plugs instead of one coil.

That reminds me the first time I did the brakes on this car I bled RR, LR, RF, LF and it was still a little soft. Then I read that new cars have a redundant braking system with two sets of lines instead of one and they are diagonal (so If a line gets cut you still have one front and one rear break) and with these brake systems you have to bleed RR, LF, LR, RF. After I did it this way the brakes were nice and stiff.
Here is a quote from an NSX web site which describes the same thing for a different car:

"We will be extracting the fluid from the bleed screw located on the top of each brake caliper. The service manual indicates that order matters, so we will begin bleeding the right rear (RR) first, then cross the vehicle to the left front (LF). Remember, the master cylinder is really a dual cylinder; the RR and LF brakes are operated by one and the LR and RF the other. We bleed the longest brake line first (RR) and complete the sub-system with the LF, then move on to the next longest line (LR) and complete the sub-system with the (RF). So, we're really bleeding two separate systems"

Maybe that will help here

[Nx2k]

since the inboard pads are wearing faster, then i would assume it's a caliper issue, check the sliding pin.
i have the same car as you and these cars have horrible braking. worse i've ever driven

[menaboy64]

maybe the brake booster?

[john]

OK finally some conclusions. It seems to me that when the pads are worn all the way down, I MEAN ALL THE WAY DOWN, that the master cylinder piston(s) go to far and fool you into thinking it is the master cylinder. I am pretty sure I didn't have a bad master cylinder just very worn pads! So, don't do the master cylinder until after you have changed the pads! I have had very worn pads on other cars and never experienced this problem!

Oh What a Feeling!