I have been having some brake problems and decided to bleed the brake system completely. Since I was doing it, I decided to paint the calipers again since they were looking bad from the last paint job. SO I took the calipers off and did all my stuff and put everything back together. Well, we pumped the brakes and kept refilling the reservoir until we were satisfied that all the old fluid was out. Well, after doing this I have nearly no brakes now. I can pump the brakes when the car is off and it gets hard as a rock, but while the car is running, a feather could push the brake to the floor and it will not hold the car from rolling from Idle! Did we get air in the ABS and what do we need to do to fix this? We have sat out there bleeding the brakes for a while with no luck. Don’t look like any air is coming out, but I have no brake while the car is running, but seems like my brakes are strong while it is off.

Thanks for the help!!!

 

I noticed something like this on my car, but not as drastic as you make it sound. Pedal feals great with car off, start it and you can always push pedal all the way to floor and feels a little "spongy". I've had people check it out for me, friends, certified mechs, 2 of my instructors at auto college. First thing they always say is it feels normal, but I know my car and it wasn't always like that. I've heard alot of ideas, maybes, and I wonders, but nothing solid. The shop manual says a tech2 scan tool is required to agitate the ABS module in order to properly bleed the lines. I've heard that its a different compound pad that feels different, I've tried several types. One guy said my mods changed the vacuum characteristics of the engine, so the booster feels different. The soft lines are expanding, master cylinder's bad, water in brake fluid, lines too close to header heat, blah, blah, blah. I can't bring myself to just start throwing parts at it when technically it works fine, but the only idea i have at this point is replace everything and ditch the ABS completely.

 

I found out that I had reinstalled the calipers wrong and I had the passanger on the driver side and vice-versa. After swapping and bleeding, especially since I have replaced all the fluid with DOT 4 synthetic fluid, I have never felt the brakes feel as good as they do now. YOu might want to look into it.