Brake pedal travel

Technical advice Q&A

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Stevejaguar
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#1 Brake pedal travel

Post by Stevejaguar » Mon Jul 03, 2017 11:18 am

Series 1, 2+2.
New servo, new master cylinder and Coopercraft callipers on the front.
With everything bled, and no air in the system, when I depress the brake pedal it stops when it hits the bulkhead. I would have expected the travel to be stopped when the master cylinder reached the end of its travel.
The brakes work but are not very good. They do not 'pump up'.
Any thoughts ?

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Series1 Stu
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#2 Re: Brake pedal travel

Post by Series1 Stu » Mon Jul 03, 2017 12:35 pm

There's still air in the system.

Try bleeding the cylinders directly then bleed at the calipers.

Those dual circuit slave cylinders are the devil's own job to bleed at times .

It may get messy

Regards
Stuart

If you can't make it work, make it complicated!

'62 FHC - Nearing completion
'69 Daimler 420 Sovereign
'93 Jaguar X300 XJR basket case
'93 Audi 80 quatrro Sport

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mgcjag
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#3 Re: Brake pedal travel

Post by mgcjag » Mon Jul 03, 2017 2:26 pm

Hi Steve..as Stuart said air still in system.......the best way to bleed is with two people.....one on the pedal and one on the spanner.....open the valve....pedal down......close valve.....pedal up.....and continue.....even better with a bleed tube that has a one way valve...but follow same procedure as above... Steve
Steve
69 S2 2+2 (sold) ..Realm C type replica, 1960 xk150fhc

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Hugo
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#4 Re: Brake pedal travel

Post by Hugo » Tue Jul 04, 2017 3:29 pm

I always manage on my own. Just open the bleed nipple - or a union along the way somewhere - and pump like crazy. At the end you might need one more partial depression of the pedal while you close the valve or union, but if they're pointing upwards the last bit of air might find its own way out.
If you have a new master cylinder you can use all of its travel. Otherwise no more than half or even a third, otherwise the piston will be venturing into territory that it doesn't normally see, and there may be some nasties lurking in there which will bugger up the seal. I've lost count of the number of cars I've seen over the years where somebody has done some work on the brakes, followed a few days later by total brake failure because they didn't heed this advice.
Hugo Miller - rebuilding an imported Series II OTS & converting to RHD

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