Well, I've properly bleed all four calipers four times, in the correct order, yet still have squishy brakes! 😩 There is some firmness, compared to 100% squishiness, but definitely not the firmness where it should be.

I'm wondering if air somehow got in the MC and need to bench bleed it? I'm pretty sure I never let the brake fluid decrease to the "low level" indicator in the brake reservoir.

I checked all around for leaks, but have not seen any.

This conundrum of air getting in my system is from me taking off the calipers and brake hoses (to clean them and spray paint the calipers, and replace the piston, square-cut seal, and dust boot cover), while sticking a 3/16" plastic tube on the brake line and pinching the tube off with a zip tie in-order for brake fluid to not continuously leak.

Could air somehow get pushed up into the brake lines while having the 3/16" tube on the brake line? I mean, the brake fluid completely stopped dripping once I put that tube on the brake line.

I actually made a short video on exactly what I am talking about, if you want to get a better idea.


I'm thinking of just buying the Maxicheck Pro to do the ABS bleed in hopes of fixing this penitential issue, if the 2012 Fit ABS can do such a thing. 😞

Any advice would be great, gents. Thanks!

 

Have you let the reservoir going dry when bleeding? If so, you might have to bench bleed the master cylinder, and you might also have air in the ABS module, which you might need to make it "modulate" to get the air out...

 

Are you sure that you have air in the system and not a mushy pedal due to either the caliper pins sticking or the piston not moving freely? Sticky caliper pins is a common problem with our style calipers.

On our Fit, I have replaced the whole brake system (except for the brake booster) so I have run air through the ABS module. It just passed straight through without issue.

 

I'm pretty sure I didn't let the brake fluid go low enough to hit the low marking on the brake reservoir.

I am thinking of buying the Autel Maxicheck Pro 2020 version to activate the ABS for bleeding, because I am having difficulty activating it when hard-braking on snow or wet pavement. I contacted Autel with my vehicle information and they said that scanner can do the ABS bleed. It's around $200 for the scanner, however. :/

That's good to know.

Well, I did clean the entire caliper, installed new pistons, and put new caliper grease in the pins, except I didn't fully wipe out the old stuff that was inside of the little rubber boots. I guess I can try doing that. Maybe I put in too much or too little grease on the pins? I'm not 100% sure.

Is the caliper piston supposed to be fully retracted into the bore after pressing and releasing the brakes, as if I were to have pushed it all the way back in with a tool, like how people do when installing the caliper back onto the bracket and pads? Every time I've taken the caliper off, it's always right up against the brake pads.

However, when there was definitely air in the lines, my brake pedal was hitting the floor, without any pressure, no problem. After doing the brake bleed I regained some firmness.

This will be like the thousandth time I will jack my car up and remove the wheels and such. Lolz. 😩

 

To save some time, remember you don't have to remove the brake line from the caliper for this. Make sure it's all moving freely.

For whatever reason, the passenger side front is always the problem corner on our Fit. I don't think the distribution in the ABS module is done correctly on ours. The passenger side front always has the most wear and most brake dust. Have had 3 different calipers on that corner and always the same. This also means that corner gets the hottest which is what caused two of the calipers to have issues.

 

Interesting. That's good to know.

When you wrote, "Make sure it's all moving freely," are you referring to the pins?

Also, how may I go about checking if the piston is doing its job and sliding in and out? Should I just take the wheel off and have someone pump the brakes, and look to see if the piston is moving in and out?

Thanks.

Note: It's worth to note I have noticed a somewhat faint grinding noise when I am nearing the end of my braking while driving. I think it's coming from the front brakes. However, I've read this can be just breaking in the new pads.

 

I was also talking about the piston. Just make sure you can move it back in with some force using a c clamp or disc brake tool. Make sure it moves in and out.

Did you do the bedding in procedure on the pads? If so, they should be good to go after that and pretty much be whatever they're going to be. If they are performance pads, definitely count on more noise. That is normal.

Mushy pedal can also be from pads that aren't bedded in or if you got ANY contaminant on the pads. They have to be completely clean on install.

Also, just food for thought, different pads feel differently. If you went to some kind of inexpensive ceramic pad, they don't have the "bite" of a semi-metallic pad.

 

Indeed. I used a caliper piston compressing tool and ye' old brake pad to compress the two pistons back in. After pressing the brake pedal, the piston is always right up against the brake pad.

Soooooooooooo, likeeeeee, I never heard of a bedding-in-of-the-brake-pads-process before. Lolz. Is it bad that I've now driven around twenty miles or something since I've installed these new pads, rotors, caliper hardware, shoes for the drums, and a few pieces of the drum brake hardware? =o I did spray paint the rotors a bit, and a little bit of the paint dried on the surface of where the brake pad makes contact.

I think I installed them without getting any anti-seize or anything on the front brake pads. The shoes on the drum brakes, well, that's a different story. I did end up getting some drum brake grease on them. 🤦‍♂️

 

Brakleen or any good brake cleaner can probably fix the grease on shoe issue. The drum brakes really don't do much regardless.

Bedding in of the pads is pretty important. If not done, the pads can end up "glazed" and you'll have that bad pedal feel and pads that don't bite. If you take the calipers off to check the pins, may want to take some Scotch Brite to the pads, reinstall, and then do the bed in procedure.

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiret....jsp?techid=85

Regardless of pad used, I basically follow the method recommended by Hawk above. Basically increasing speed and stopping force on several almost stops while keeping moving. I do that 6 or so times until the last step where I apply a fair amount of stopping force without coming to a complete stop. After that last step, I let them fully cool and that is usually the last time I give it any thought. That usually puts enough heat in them to get them fully bedded in.

 

I'm learning a lot here. Thanks!

 

Glad to pass on any knowledge I have. I started working on cars when I was 15 and am now 48. Drag raced, street raced, auto cross, car shows...I'm a full car junky. Even spent some time on sport bikes and moved to the mountains for better roads.

I've also broken a lot along the way and done some pretty stupid stuff. Still do stupid stuff all the time and still learning myself.

Glad you are interested and gaining knowledge!

 

The bedding process is in fact important. Can change completely from pads to pads. It is normally written on the pads box...

 

@GAFIT Yeah, I'm right there with you in breaking things. Lolz. We live and learn!

Thanks, though, it is really cool to keep learning mechanic stuff. It's really interesting.

@Frenzal Thanks for the information. I checked the packaging box for the new brakes I installed, but there were no instructions about the bedding process written on the outside.

Yesterday while driving I did about 13 rounds of intentionally getting up to almost 40 mph, then braking down to about 15 mph. The grinding noise has decreased, and the outside of the rotors still look fresh and smooth. :]