Brake Pedal

[kingfish]

ON my 95 tracker has a soft brake pedal. You have to push it about half way down before the brakes works. Is this normal?

[prcruiser]

eehh, nope. Check if your pads are worn and/or have enough brake fluid or if fluid is contaminated. In the worst case scenario, check for brake lines. In my case the brake pads were ok but the front discs were rusty and the brake fluid was dark brown and dirty as h3ll. Yesterday, I replaced front discs, new pads (because the other ones got the contour of older disc) and bleed/flush the brake fluid. Now the pedal feels solid.

[suzboy]

also check rear adjusters . they will seize up if forgotten about.

[kingfish]

I had put on new pads/shoes, and rotors. The rear adjusters are fine, and the brake fluid is at the correct level. The brake line were bleed. If the fluids contamenated, would changing it fix the pedal?

[tracka96]

If you pump the pedal, does come up higher with each pump, or does it always go down to where it was with the first pump. Tracka

[prcruiser]

Ok, what I did first was the flushing bleeding thing and cleaning the rear brakes. After that, I felt a lot of difference while breaking because at the beginning I had to almost floor the pedal. Yesterday, since i had to replace the ball joints I also changed the front rotors and pads even when pads were ok, since the rotors had imperfections, the pads contours at disc form. Now my sidekick brakes as it suppose to brake.

You said that brake lines were bleed, in that case your brake fluid in reservoir should be clean and not look contaminated, if looks like it, flush the brake fluid.

Pray for be a simple thing to fix.

[kingfish]

when pumped the pedal does come up a little.

[tracka96]

When you replaced the rear shoes did you manually adjust them? The auto adjusters will pretty much only keep them adjusted after the initial manual adjustment. Tracka

[kingfish]

yeah the drums were manually adjusted. The pedals been this way sinse i got the tracker a couple years ago, and i havn't had any probblems stoping. I just thought it was normal, beacause other cars are just normally like that.