help with brakes

[Damkid]

okay, for a while i knew i needed to do a brake job on my car, i knew they were getting bad, well a few days ago the brake pedal started to go basically to the floor (it's not leaking fluid either) and didn't really do much no matter how hard i pushed on it, (i was thinking maybe a pad in the back came off the metal) so i figured time to do the aspire swap

well i got the rear brakes on (didn't have time for the front yet) and i still can barely stop the car, i will be changing the fronts shortly to the aspire brakes but the festiva ones in the front aren't that bad, so by rights i should be able to stop farely easy

what i'm wandering is could it possibly be the master cylinder that died on me? if so how do i check it? or could it be that distribution block (not sure of the real name for it) thing thats on the firewall?

any help would be great because i'm leary about driving it right now

[packrat427]

If you are sure that you have no leaks , and you pedal goes to the floor , I am sure the Master cylinder is gone bad , They will act up ,if they are close to the edge of failure when it is very cold .

They bypass internally and the will not apply brake pressure , and the pedal will go to the floor .

[Damkid]

yes i'm sure there's no leaks, so what i'll do is try and find a M/C from a junkyard to make sure that is the problem (trying not to spend much after over $600 for all new aspire brakes)

[elcamino1]

Get the master cylinder off of the aspire it will fit have to move the line a little

[Guest]

pull 1 from the j/y but beware of autozone remanufactured crap..

[monkeyracing]

Master cylinder fer sure.

[Damkid]

pull 1 from the j/y but beware of autozone remanufactured crap..

there's no autozone's in canada, at least not that i've seen

[Dave G]

If you are sure that you have no leaks , and you pedal goes to the floor , I am sure the Master cylinder is gone bad

Yes. The rubber cups lose their elasticity and no longer spread out against the cyinder walls.

[oxbrain]

How hard is it to adjust the pushrod when installing a new mastercylinder? I'm considering upgrading to something bigger, is there anything bigger than the aspire, but smaller than the 929?

[monkeyracing]

A larger master cylinder won't neccessarily help you. A smaller master will give you higher line pressure, but lower volume. Higher line pressure is probably more desirable in this case.

[oxbrain]

I've got the aspire swap, and I need more volume. The pedal effort is minimal, and it bottoms out before the brakes lock with race tires. The aspire MC would probably work, but I'd rather something a bit bigger for easier control.

edit:

From looking through rockauto, bore size on the MC

Festiva - 3/4"
Aspire wo/ABS 13/16" w/ABS 7/8"
323 - 7/8"
929 - 1"

I'm going to pull one from a 323 and see how it works.

[DuritzCrows17]

Yeah deff let us know how the bigger mc's fit and work, I am also interested in upgrading.

[roycehof]

Yep - Let everybody know how the 323 MC works for you. I never did like the pedal on my stock festy. Like to have earlier braking action.

[Damkid]

i got a M/C today from a junkyard, hopefully this is my problem

i would also like to know how other M/C's from other cars work on the festy, probably once money builds up again i'll buy a brand new M/C and i'd like to know if it would be worth it to upgrade

[s_man692000]

Im going through the same thing,brakes went to the floor,no leaks,we bled them because what it felt like was unbled brakes ,they seemed better last night,but on my way to work this morning they went to the floor again,the good news is there is a festiva at the local junkyard,was just there Saturday and got a spare tire.