warning: seafoam for brake line

[smilecow]

Two days ago I bled my 99 camry's brakes and the brakes's reponse became really great.

Yesterday I went to my friend's house and saw his car burning carbon after seafoam. I was so impressed, bought seafoam and poured 1/3 thru brake line. 10min later I started to drive and it exhaled alot of carbon in the air. I took a step on brake but the response of the brake was not faster than yesterday.

I made a decision to bleed brakes for safety issue
Today I bled my brakes and I saw there was air in the brake fluid again.

After bleeding, now the reponse of the brake became goood again

My suggestion is that If you poured seafoam thru brake line, you should bleed brakes for safety.

[92alltrac]

sucking seafoam thru the brake booster hose should have nothing to do with getting air into your lines.

[EEngineer]

brake line is not the same as brake booster....there's some fundamental differences.

[zppeacock]

Originally Posted by 92alltrac

sucking seafoam thru the brake booster hose should have nothing to do with getting air into your lines.

exactly, you either didnt bleed them fully or are getting air into the lines.

[mk2-1jz]

vacuum line vs closed off master cylinder line/brake circuit. You could put seafoam in any rubber hose that sucks on the engine, but the most efficient is the brake booster vacuum hose.

NOT RELATED, you have another type of problem in your brake system that is siphoning air, or you did not perform the procedure correctly the first time.

What was the bleeding procedure you used? Please explain in detail, if done improperly you could be looking at serious danger.

[AlmightyCamry777]

Originally Posted by 92alltrac

sucking seafoam thru the brake booster hose should have nothing to do with getting air into your lines.

He's right, they're totally unrelated...its like saying changing your oil made your transmission fluid go down...
probably the need to bleed again, was caused by just some residual air bubbles hiding in the brake fluid lines or the master that got knocked loose, after a few stops.

[JohnGD]

If you have air in the system after days, then you may want to check for leaks. Or maybe it wasn't fully bled in the first place. For example, if you have ABS and there was air in the secondary pressure relieving circuit.

Originally Posted by smilecow

Two days ago I bled my 99 camry's brakes and the brakes's reponse became really great.

Yesterday I went to my friend's house and saw his car burning carbon after seafoam. I was so impressed, bought seafoam and poured 1/3 thru brake line. 10min later I started to drive and it exhaled alot of carbon in the air. I took a step on brake but the response of the brake was not faster than yesterday.

I made a decision to bleed brakes for safety issue
Today I bled my brakes and I saw there was air in the brake fluid again.

After bleeding, now the reponse of the brake became goood again

My suggestion is that If you poured seafoam thru brake line, you should bleed brakes for safety.

[haux]

Originally Posted by smilecow

I took a step on brake but the response of the brake was not faster than yesterday.

Feeding seafoam through the brake booster hose does not affect the braking system in any way. It goes into the engine.

[73sport]

2 cents -

If someone is helping you bleed the brakes by pushing and holding the pedal down I usually tap the caliper/wheel cylinder I'm bleeding to dislodge air and facilitate its departure through that scrawny orifice. Using a 15” length of clear silicone tubing helps you to see the bubbles and direct the fluid to a more pleasant place.

Also – if doing this process to a high mileage master cylinder, you risk a latent failure of master cylinder itself for the following reasons:

If the brakes were working correctly before being bled then it’s likely the pedal was high and the brake pedal has not been pushed completely to the floor (m/c pushed to the ends of its travel) in a very long time!

Now that you’ve pushed this old m/c to the very end, its basically gone into no-mans land scraping up sediment and/or possibly cutting the rubber cups (pistons) on that sediment.
So be advised that the pedal may drop in the next couple weeks when the m/c fails!

This could explain what you’re experiencing now or perhaps you left a bleeder cracked open? This could allow air back into the front/rear line set.

Be careful and check everything over real thorough!

Did you install new pad or was this just a PM? Sometimes people overheat new brake pads after a fresh install and they get grabby. When the cool the next day they are less affective until they get warm again. This is somewaht dependent on the type and quality of part used!

Hope this helps!

[JohnGD]

Some pretty good advice.

People need to be aware of the feel of the master cylinder operation. If in doubt, inspect and replace. I've seen some go around 100K miles, others nearly 300K miles.

[Zain]

i have asked this question before in a different thread but did not get any reply.
can anyone tell me when should we seafome the engine
my engine online has 69k miles on it
should i still seafoam it?

thanks

[BMR]

With that few miles on it, I'd say no, don't bother. Unless it was driven by grandma and never saw more than 2000 RPM its whole life. Then I might.