Okay listen closely PLEASE, urgently need HELP:

I drove my car about 40 miles away from where I live. The front left caliper started sticking (I didn't roll back on hills)

I rolled into a gas station with a smoking caliper, and turned off the engine. (AT THIS POINT I HAD BRAKE PRESSURE)

10 minutes later, I started the car and had absolutely NO PRESSURE in my brake pedal, it went to the floor, but I was still able to stop the car (by pinning the brakes to the floor)

I drove 5 minutes to see my friend on his Campus, and parked my car in the visitor's parking lot and left it there for approx 24 hours.

I got in my car the next day at around the same time that it was yesterday and turned on the car with three bottles of brake fluid prepared to drive the car home with a seized caliper when suddenly I got full pressure to the brakes.


Okay now.. now that that story is out of the way.. here is my problem and why i'm suspicious....


Me and a buddy of mine went to go slap on a new caliper tonight. We put it on, tightened everything up and begun to bleed the brakes.. starting with the front left side for obvious reasons. I pumped the brake and got no pressure. We bled this side about 12 times. We bled the other three sides.. about 4 times each... nothing, no pressure. We bled the master cylinder twice.. nothing.



Okay so i'm stumped. I have no idea what's going on here. I mean, idk if pressure will build up overnight like my car did at the campus? Is there some kind of air lock in there? What's going on? The master cylinder was FULL each time we bled it.. and yes we know how to bleed brakes, so we didn't do that wrong. PLEASE, PLEASE help.

 

you may have a bad master cylinder

 

Okay well, I just replaced the caliper, it's brand new. But that could very well be. We put a lot of new brake fluid in there already though. I KNOW this problem has something to do with the caliper freezing up and I don;t want to jinx it, but I think I might have pressure tomorrow afternoon.

 

Sounds like the master cylinder may have an internal leak. The fluid may be going around the piston seals in the master cylinder cuasing you to have no pedal. Is there any fluid coming out when your opening the bleeder?

 

I'll have to go with the bad master cylinder. At first it sounded like you just had a lot of air in your brake line causing it to go from sticking, to limp, to normal. But the bleeding issue is a bit of a conundrum.

Have you checked the brake lines? Any bulges or anything like that? Leaks?

 

Yes, there was fluid coming out of each point (all 4)

 

No leaks. It had to have been something that happened relating to the caliper freezing up, nothing else makes sense.

 

i think its a safe bet your master cylinder is done.

 

watch the hose on the side that had the bad caliper, have someone push the pedal down hard and look to see if the hose bulges. all the heat may have damaged it.

 

Would the Master cylinder get messed up from brakes getting hot? I had this same thing happen to the other side and didn't encounter this problem.

How much is a new master cylinder anyway.