About a month ago I lost full brakes, so I assumed the master went bad and replaced it. After 4 bench bleeds, complete flush and bleed of the system I still have a sponge in the pedal. I did a check on the brake booster and it holds pressure also.

The only thing I have noticed which is odd during some of the brake bleeding I would get dark spots in the fluid (front, rear) didn't matter even after a total flush of the system.. Everything looks good from what I can find, no leaks, etc but still no firm braking.

Any ideas?

 

Have you change the rubber break hoses yet?

 

No I have not changed those out yet but it was my next step. I did a full inspection and they all look intact, no cracking, etc, etc... I also inspected the hard lines from the mc and they all look solid also except for a little surface rust down by the trans tun..

 

Well Sir these rubber lines can be hard to trouble shoot. They deteriorate from the inside, they can look almost new and still be defective. After all they probably are over twenty years old, Good luck and let us know what you find.

 

I would agree with you but the lines are only about 3 years old so they shouldn't be going bad that soon... Anyway going for broke. Ordered new lines, calipers and fluid. With discounts online at advance was just at 100 bucks with free shipping.. If that does not work not much else right :-)

 

Do you have rear drum brakes? Also a good idea might be to apply the brakes and go around to each wheel with it jacked up and press and release the brakes and make sure each wheel locks and unlocks...if you have a problem at one of the wheels it will show this way.

 

I have not tried that yet, good idea, I'll try that at least it might provide a starting place. But for 100 bucks replacing 20+ year old hardware at the wheels will be nice anyway. I'll post the end results.

 

Sounds like there's air in the MC.

LOOK at it: the lines don't attach at the highest point of the 2 chambers. Meaning, if there's air in there, you can bleed them for an hour every day, and TWO hours on Sundays just for good measure, and the air WILL NEVER EVER come out of there. It'll stay safely and securely protected from all your "bleeding" up there at the top, above the only possible escape route (the line fitting down below that it can't get to).

Only solution is to "bench bleed" the MC, with it held level, so that the air can escape.

 

It was bench bled level several times level in a vice. But I found the root cause. The front side of the MC (the new one) quit working or at least was not pushing out as much juice as it should, so after getting another , another new one :-) from advanced I was able to get it working as it should... However I was due for some new lines even though they was only 3 years old had started to break down for some reason so it was a good thing I went to the extreme and replaced all the hardware and flushed the entire system. Now the next phase, axle seals and main seals...