I finally did a full brake job after 70k miles on them! I bleed the brakes starting with the right rear caliper then the front left. Then did the left rear then the right front calipers. I followed the bleeding procidures that wilwood gave me with their calipers. My question is... The brake pedal still feels soft. It is nice a firm when the car is off but when i am driving i can push the pedal all the way to the floor.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do? There is NO leaks anywhere. I made sure the master didnt get low during bleeding and also bleed the calipers untill clear fluid with no air was coming out.

The car has ABS but it is turned off at the moment.
-Front Brakes are Wilwood
-Rear Brakes are Baer disc conversion
-The parking brake is disconnected

Any help would be great

Might try investing in a residual pressure valve.

My brake setup hasnt changed. Everything was fine when i first put the big brakes on about 3 years ago. So i am wondering if maybe it could be the Brake Booster or ABS or maybe because i dont have any parking brake attached/

Sounds to me like your brake master cylinder is internally bypassing, a good way to test this would be to invest in some line locks( Vice grips work but are highly not reccomended) and clamp off all of the rubber hoses and see how your pedal feels with the car on , it should be rock hard, if not than you need a master cylinder.. if it is hard than go around to each line to isolate the problem.

And delphi ABS master cylinders suck to replace!


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Well i cant test that. Not one rubber brake line on the car

Sounds like you need to read up on how a braking system works and learn real fast or take the car to a professional.
A brake booster will not give you a low pedal, a bad booster will give you a very firm hard to push pedal, like when the car is off..I wont bother getting into why at the moment.
ABS will not give you a low pedal, All ABS does is monitor wheel speeds and the motor pulses brake fluid to whichever wheel(s) are slipping.
Also a park brake is COMPLETLEY unrelated to your problem, a park brake is a cable that is a MECHANICAL brake, not a hydraulic brake.

From what you're saying it sounds like you have a bad master cylinder but now judging from your inexperiance I am curious as to how you bled the brakes.. did you happen to pull the calipers off by any chance?

so do this...

1.Make sure the resivouir is completly full.
2. Go to each wheel and just open the bleeder
3. Let fluid drip for say 10 minutes
4. close all bleeder valves..
5. tell us how the pedal feels now.





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Quote:

! I bleed the brakes starting with the right rear caliper then the front left. Then did the left rear then the right front calipers. I followed the bleeding procidures that wilwood gave me with their calipers

I bleed with a vacuum bleeder first.. then i did it the old fashon way. With someone pressing and holding/pumping procedure. Both gave the same results. And yes all the calipers were off at one point so i could inspect the seals on the pistons.

As for gravity bleeding.... I highly doubt that that will fix anything nor work. Unless it was a joke.

Quote:

As for gravity bleeding.... I highly doubt that that will fix anything nor work. Unless it was a joke.

WOW i take that back......................

I will give it a shot!!!

still sounds like you went at an odd wheel order.....

The ABS unit needs to be bleed also, especially if you got air into the MC at any point.
The following are excerts from Babcox Publishing's Brake and Front End Magazine.

Brake and Front End Magazine wrote:SELLING SERVICES

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Bleeding ABS Brakes After Component Replacement

By Larry Carley

Bleeding the brakes after brake components have been replaced is a step you don’t want to skip if you want a firm brake pedal. Air trapped in the lines, calipers or wheel cylinders will make the pedal feel soft and spongy. Air is compressible, so when the brakes are applied any air bubbles in the system must first be compressed before the hydraulic fluid will transmit pressure to apply the brakes.

As a rule, the brake circuits on most vehicles with anti-lock brakes can be bled in the usual manner — provided no air has gotten into the ABS modulator assembly. If the only components you replaced were downstream of the modulator (calipers, wheel cylinders, brake hoses or lines), chances are normal bleeding procedures will clear the lines of any unwanted air.

Brakes can be bled manually, with a power bleeder, injector tool or vacuum bleeder. It doesn’t make any difference which method you use as long as all the lines and components are flushed with enough fluid to remove any trapped air bubbles or air pockets.

The most common bleeding procedure is to bleed the brake furthest from the master cylinder first, then bleed the other brake that shares the same hydraulic circuit (which may be the other rear brake on a rear-wheel drive car or truck, or the opposite front brake on a front-wheel drive car or minivan). After these have been bled, you then bleed the other brake circuit starting with the furthest brake from the master cylinder.

Always refer to the vehicle manufacturer’s recommended bleeding sequence as this may vary from one application to another depending on how the system is configured.

NOT SO FAST
But what if you replaced the master cylinder, a brake line or valve ahead of the ABS modulator? Or, what if you had to replace the modulator or high pressure accumulator? Now you have a more difficult job ahead of you.

Air can be very difficult to remove from an ABS modulator assembly because of all the nooks and crannies inside the unit. The modulator may have eight to 10, or more, ABS/traction control solenoid valves, plus various check valves and dead-end ports. Some ABS modulators have special bleed screws to help you vent the trapped air when bleeding the system. Others do not and require the use of a scan tool to cycle the ABS solenoids while you bleed the system.

To better understand what may be required, let’s look at some bleeding procedures for some common General Motors ABS systems....

...DELPHI DBC-7 ABS
Introduced on 1999 Buick Regal and Century, and Chevrolet Tracker, the Delphi Brake Control (DBC) 7 ABS system is the successor to the Delco ABS-VI system. It replaced ABS-VI in 2000 on Chevrolet Impala, Monte Carlo, Malibu, Cavalier and Venture, Pontiac Sunfire and Montana, and Oldsmobile Cutlass and Silhouette.

Unlike the earlier ABS-VI system, DBC-7 does not use motor driven plungers to cycle pressure in the brake lines. It uses solenoids like most other ABS systems. The Brake Pressure Modulator Valve has one inlet (apply) valve and one outlet (release) valve for each brake channel, plus two accumulators (one for each brake circuit). So the BPMV contains a total of six ABS valves for three channel system applications, eight ABS valves for four channel systems, or 10 ABS valves if the vehicle has TCS traction control. The inlet valves are normally open, and the outlet valves are normally closed. The solenoid for each valve is energized when the EBCM provides a ground to complete the circuit.

The GM passenger car applications are all four-channel ABS systems, so each of the four BPMV outlets is connected to the brake line for a separate wheel. The lines are color coded for identification:

• Left rear is purple;
• Right rear is yellow;
• Left front is red; and
• Right front is green.

DBC-7 BLEEDING PROCEDURES
Normal bleeding procedures can be used to bleed the individual brake lines provided no air has entered the ABS modulator. But if air has entered the modulator, the system will have to be bled using a pressure bleeder and scan tool:


Connect the pressure bleeder to the master cylinder reservoir.


Turn the ignition on.


With bleeder screws closed, pressurize the system to 35 psi.


Select the “Automatic Bleed Procedure” on the scan tool. The scan tool will then energize and cycle the ABS solenoids in the BPMV for one minute.

After this, the scan tool will instruct you to bleed each wheel. During this step, the pump runs and the respective release valve cycles for one minute. This is repeated for each wheel. Finally, the scan tool performs a final 20 second cycling of the ABS solenoids to purge any remaining air.


Relieve pressure at the bleed tool and remove it from the master cylinder. Then check pedal height and feel to make sure all the air has been removed and the pedal is firm.

MadJack wrote:The ABS unit needs to be bleed also, especially if you got air into the MC at any point.

and that is even with it unplugged.

You can still get air trapped in the cylinders, causing the soft pedal. The bleeding procedures cycle the pistons to pump the air out of the cylinders.

Remember the 2K+ uses the Delphi DBC-7 ABS, where as the "99 & earlier uses the Delco ABS-VI, which uses a different bleeding procedure as opposed to the one above and can be done with or without a high end scan tool. See my thread in the Article: ABS Series: Delco VI System thread.

Maybe that is my problem then. Because when i did my motor swap i had to take the master cylinder off which on a 99 the abs is built into instead of off the side like 2000 up. My brake light and abs light has been on since i got the car though. And almost all the time the rear right wheel will grab before anything else. I kind of wonder if there was air in the abs sytem to begin with because i had the abs codes pulled and it was throwing one that could mean 1 of 3 things. And i remeber on being that the abs part on the side was ever the technical name is could be bad.

But the wheel speed sensors and all that was fine. In my service manual it says to cycle the ignition switch like 3 times until the abs and brake light go off or something around that then bleed the master cylinder. I don't have the manual with me so i can't tell you exactly. Which is what i did. My petal doesn't go to the floor but does go futher than my 2000 which would throw you into the windshield if you pushed it the same. I also noticed that it acts like the braking is all off. Like when hitting the brakes 2 wheels grab before the others. Kind of hard to explain.

So thanks mad i'll take it to my buddies shop and give it a shot with his abs code reader since i got something loose in the front end agian. A little off topic has anyone had more problems with the right front more than the left? Like inner/outer tie rods or wheel bearings?

When I installed my brakes I had to bleed the system twice. I'd say try bleeding them again.

Blown Phoniex, Try cleaning the front wheel speed sensors on the '99, before you running off to the shop, unless you going to clean them there. I cleaned my fronts and haven't gotten the ABS light except when the left rear does the same as you describe.

The wheel lock-up is a separate problem. To get it to release I drag the brakes for a moment and works correctly after that. I've replaced everything on the rear, bleed the system numerous times and replaced the ABS Hydraulic unit, to no avail. Researching thisafter I did all that, most seem to use the Delco rear shoes to solve the problem, which is my next thing to try.

Well i gravity bleed them... NO luck. I rebleed all them again. No luck.. Looks like im off to the dealership to get bleed or somewhere with a scantool