I have been having some trouble with the braking system on my 94 gt. When the brakes are applied the car does stop but not up to standards. The pedal goes pretty much as far as its travel allows. If im travellingabout 30 miles adn then hammer on the brakes as hard as I can the car just slows down. Its not enough to make me throw forward if I dont have my seat belt on. I decided to bleed the brakes today to see if that will help but it made no difference. A little air was in the system but not alot. the fluid is a very dark black color though. Could the fluid have broken down and become compressive and thus not allowing hte breakes to operate good? there are no leaks in the system.

 

If you have blead the brakes, why not
start from the rear and keep adding
new fluid thill ti shows. Then do all other
brakes till it comes out clear.
Then you will have changed to all new
fluid.

Then on to next problem like the master
cylinder.

 

Ditto bleed the brakes

One more thing - Do the brakes pump up when you pump the pedal ?

How about when you partially apply the hand brake?

 

Any glazing on the pads and rotors ?

Scratch them with emery cloth....

Make sure there is a pedal let down if you hold the foot on the pedal and wait a few min after shutting the engine off.

If you feel no difference your brake booster ( if it has one ) may be NG

The master cylinder could have an interanl leak meaning the fluid by pasess the piston and does not really get pressurised.

 

there isnt really any glazing on the pads. If I hold the pedal after shutting off the engine I feel no noticable difference after a few miinutes. Possible the brake booster is dead but if I remember right I should still be able to function right with no booster...wouod be like there was none ever. Unless I am wrong (very possible). I was thinking about an internal master cylinder problem. My last car had that and if I held the brakes on for a few minutes they would slowly fall to the floor. I think these go down as far as they can go. I will try to get a master cylinder rebuild kit tomorrow and maybe a vacuum pump to help me bleed the brakes (I work by myself mostly).

To top it all off I noticed that one of my rims is cracked from the bead to near the center. So now im in the market for some new rims...
thanks all.

 

I bought a $2 self bleader kit.
A 1 oz plastic jar (small) with a tube
that goes thru the top and into the botom
of the jar. You open the bleader attach the
tube and let the jar hang.
As you pump the fluid goes in and covers
the end of the tube so when you
let go the brakes suck in fluid not air.
A few pumps and the jar is filled.

My jar came with a magnet so you can stick
the jar on the fender, lost long time ago.

 

Cool!!! hope the bleeding does it for you.
As far as the vacum booster - you should look for some kind of different pedal feel once the stored vacum is used up. Try shutting the car off and pressing the brake until the pedal feels stiff. It is not a perfect test but it tells you that the vacum booster is doing something while the engine is running....