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Old 05-14-2017, 08:27 PM
Terry M. Hunt Terry M. Hunt is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Way over yonder
Posts: 908
Default Low pedal after brake work

I finished the restoration on my '65 2+2 around 1994. Replaced all the brake shoes, brake hoses, wheel cylinders, master cylinder, had booster rebuilt, and switched to silicone brake fluid. I should have replaced the hard brake lines then, but didn't get around to that until last summer. On this second brake go round I replaced all hoses, all hard brake lines, front shoes, and front wheel cylinders. Had a struggle getting a good seal at all the joints, even though I used steel lines, not stainless lines. Finally got everything tight. Did a couple of two man brake bleeding sessions and pronounced all was good. Did a long trip from Atlanta to Daytona for Turkey Run and numerous shorter trips to local shows and cruises. What I'm noticing now is that the brake pedal travels a good bit further than it used to in stopping the car. I don't notice anything else amiss in how it stops. It is a little unnerving to feel the pedal travel that far before enough force is produced to stop the car. It is also weird to look down when the car comes to a stop and see how close to the floor the pedal is. This is not the way this system used to perform. The pedal didn't travel as far to get the car stopped. The braking action began at the top of the pedal's arc of travel and was not as close to the floor when the car came to a stop. I can apply the brakes and hold the pedal down with the car at rest and the pedal does not sink. The amount of travel does not seem to vary, it just seems like too much.
When I installed the new front shoes, I tried to adjust them out as far as I could without creating too much drag. I then went to an empty parking lot and went through numerous back up/drive forward cycles to get the automatic adjusters to move the shoes out to the ideal position. Since then, I've gone through even move backward/forward cycles just in the course of normal driving. What is up with this issue?

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Terry Hunt
"He'd need 5 years in the fifth grade just to get an idiot certificate" Smokey Yunick re: Bill France Jr.
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