Carina Brake Problem :(

[chrispy78]

Hello,

Hope someone may be able to help?

Mother in law has asked me to help with her car (1997 Carina E 1.6) following a mot failure. It failed on n/s/r no brake effort, after investigating found n/s/r brake piston weeping and wet shoes... replaced piston and shoes both sides, Also noticed red fluid in reservoir! looked like transmission fluid :( Anyho removed the red fluid best i could and found the brake system would not bleed, n/s/r had no fluid or air at all under pedal.

Yesterday i found a second hand master cylinder (from a working car) and fitted it, result was the same, slight fluid from o/s/f, master cylinder primed correctly and very little from the rear (only a trickle)

Lol, really stumped with this car!! its an abs model and hoping its a school boy error on my part.

Many Thanks for reading.

Chrisp.

[petroleum]

If you have followed the seqeunce of bleeding the complete system then it should be ok but i guess you did not start with the master cyl first =

1 Master cly

2 left hand rear

3 right hand front

4 right hand rear

5 left hand front

Top the master cly up and undo the pipes sightly and hold a rag on around the area and get your mate to press the brake pedal dowm slowly until you see the air or see neat fluid coming out from the loosened pipes each time your mate has pressed the pedal down to the floor

And every time you go again tighten up the pipes before he returns the brake pedal and top up if you have not seen neat fluid coming out from the pipes

When that is ok? then carry on with the squence above to complete the whole system, but never let the fluid drop too far down in the reservoir keep topping up !!

[chrispy78]

Thank you for the reply.

Will try again today with your sequence :)

Chris.

[chrispy78]

Well here's whats happened so far :)

Would not bleed at all even with back bleeder. I tried a new master cylinder which improved the rears slightly, noticed nsf flexi pipe had a tiny leak... sorted that. After a days work the nsr would not bleed at all so loosened pipes on the load sensor and found fluid on the inward line but nothing outward.

Lol i suspect due to mother in law pumping transmission fluid through the leaking rear brake piston it has knackered every seal it has passed... The origional main seal in the master cylinder was really distorted.

Anyho off to find a load sensor and hopefully mot retest later today.

Chrisp.

[petroleum]

First i dont quite understand when you keep saying auto transmission fluid Girling brake fluid was always red in colour unless its changed?

Unless you get some one who has a good idea of what you want and presses the pedal down fully to the floor and holds it there when you say so then you are not going to get the fluid round the car like you hope

And brake nipples over a period of time get blocked and may need the hole cleaning out ns/r and opening them up too much when bleading defeats the object as you can let air in when you want it out!!

[sibbs]

once i had this problem and got myself a brake pressure bleed kit for around 15 quid you hook it up to your car tyre and it blasts the brake fluid through with a nice amount of psi, just a thought

[funtoyzpdx]

Yes, there is colored brake fluid. It's usually used in the racing circuit so they know when fresh fluid is passed through the system. It is a good idea to move/flush the brake fluid through the system once in awhile same as you would in the rest of the car, as dirty fluid and contaminates eventually build up and cause calipers to become slow to react or even stick.

Transmission fluid is bad news for the brake system as you have already mentioned and needs to be completely removed. If it is brake fluid that was added and it has been in there awhile you will need to start replacing things, starting with all the rubber components.