Don't overlook the obvious

[Dave G]

A couple months ago the blue Festiva's brakes suddenly became a whole lot worse than their already "kinda scary". A couple weeks ago I got around to replacing the pads on front; down to the metal here and there. That done, I bled then with a HF vacuum unit. The left front would not do anything - no fluid, no air, nothin' came out. The pedal went to the floor, pretty much no brakes. Sick and tired of screwing around with the thing, I let Safety Guy know he could have it for a couple hundred bucks. So anyway, last Saturday he came out to bolt on a tow bar, and in the process of doing that we discovered that somebody had failed to tighten the bleeder screw on the left front. All of a sudden, the brakes worked again. Doh!!

He talked me into keeping it for a while longer. Trying to keep up the attendance at OhioStiva, I'm thinking...

The brakes still suck, but it's drive-able. Maybe I'll work on them some.

[defprun]

Lol mine did the same thing, Ill double check all the bleeders and rebleed.

[bravekozak]

My brakes are hard as a rock. Stainless brake lines, new bleeder screws and silicone brake fluid. Still clear as a bell after all these years. It does not absorb water and become cloudy.

[Safety Guy]

When the brake fluid squirts out the bleeder valve, you really need to know your brake system inside and out to figure out the problem!

We correctly deduced that the first step should be to tighten the bleeder screw.

It worked!!

Dave has a drivable Festiva again!

Karl

[drddan]

^ Good deduction!