wet rotors and other braking maladies..

well my brakes are in need of some attention.. i THINK that i just need to change all the fluid out after this particularly brutal winter. while i'm at it, i'll probably wind up changing all the lines over to SS.

driving to durham the other night in the rain, i noticed that on the first push of the left pedal, my brakes were almost entirely ineffective.. i had to give it a couple squeezes before i felt the car start to slow.. it got a little scary at points. is this normal? i have slotted front rotors, but they're not crossdrilled. it felt like the pads were riding on a thin layer of water and after squeezing a couple times, i heated the rotors up enough to get the water off the discs..

i got to thinking that if the spokes of our wheels are designed to pull air towards the rotors, they probably do a pretty good job pulling water and snow in as well..

any thoughts?

-adam

[svx_commuter]

Hi Adam,

I used to have a CRX that did that in the rain. It was not a great feeling when one wheel would lock up and the car would start to slide sideways.

I have not never no way no how experienced that problem with stock brake parts. In the worst wet conditions that brakes have always been there at any speed.

Other then the slots have you done anything else? Is the under cover in place?

John

[kuoh]

Perhaps you're confusing your symptoms with hydroplaning, which can happen easily to the SVX with the wrong tires and the right road conditions. I have slotted fronts with generic pads from Autozone and have not noticed any abnormal change in braking in wet weather. Barring things like moisture in the brake system, poor pad material, or contamination of braking surfaces, I think even the stock rotors and pads stop just fine in the wet.

KuoH

Originally posted by alacrity024
driving to durham the other night in the rain, i noticed that on the first push of the left pedal, my brakes were almost entirely ineffective.. i had to give it a couple squeezes before i felt the car start to slow.. it got a little scary at points. is this normal? i have slotted front rotors, but they're not crossdrilled. it felt like the pads were riding on a thin layer of water and after squeezing a couple times, i heated the rotors up enough to get the water off the discs..

no, i'm very familiar with a hydroplaning svx, and this is not it.. i'm almost positive that my problem is "moisture in the braking system" which would warrant a full replacement of the fluid.. something i'm planning to do.

-adam

[SVXPILOT]

It sounds like water on the pads and rotors that needs to be dissapated before the brakes work like they should. mine do the same.

[svx_commuter]

Do the slotted rotors come with opposite slot angles, one for the right side, one for the left? Not that it has anything to do with this. maybe

they do.. one rotor was stamped "L" so i assumed that it went on the same side as my wheels with the same mark

heehee.. the slots face the front of the car, if you can imagine..

-adam

[svxistentialist]

Hi Adam

You mention it did this in the wet. Do you also get the symptom in the dry?

Ineffective brakes, having to pump the pedal, is indicating two things, bad fluid or air in the system.

Brake fluid is an oil, but it mixes with water, and worse it is hydroscopic, i.e. it will absorb water from the atmosphere. Much water in the fluid, and it lowers the boiling point, and the problem will present when you are using the brakes hard for a while. Brake temps go up, fluid boils, all of a sudden brakes that were working let go, feels like no braking available. Scary.

Air in the system feels similar to what you describe, no initial braking till you pump the pedal, then it works.

Air will get in if some of the connections are looser than they should be, or you have a pinhole leak in one of your flexible pipes. You should check for this before you assume the problem is water on the pads. A quick check would be to pump the pedal a couple of times till it gets hard, then hold it down. If the pedal starts to go away from you, you have a leak. You will have to find and fix it and bleed air from the system.

Joe

joe-

thanks for your advice.. the brakes are sh*t in the dry as well as the wet.. i followed the procedure in the back of the owners manual for testing the brake booster etc.. the pedal WILL hold in place under heavy pressure, but it's a little closer to the floor than i think is proper.. i'm planning to do a full brake line replacement and fluid change, just as soon as i can come up with $150 for new lines and fluid.. which.... isn't..... too likely anytime soon.....

i've never bled a set of brakes before, and i have a friend who'll help me do it, but just so i can go in with a clear picture, what's the procedure for removing the lines and bleeding them once i've installed new ones?

-adam