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Old Oct 14, 2017 | 10:24 AM
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onehundred80
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Joined: Apr 2006
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From: Ontario
Default Re: What did you do to your Crossfire today?

Originally Posted by onehundred80
Thinking about the sticky pad idea I have decided that this is no way to cause the problem as the pads are not connected to the cylinders so it would have to be the cylinders that are not returning.
I have looked into this farther and found that the pistons rebound back into each cylinder as a result of the piston seal returning to the normal shape it was prior to getting deflected by the oil pressure moving it and the piston forward. The face of the seal against the cylinder wall stays where it was due to 'stiction' caused by the oil pressure forcing it against the wall. The rest of the seal moves outward under the pressure of the oil.
Now if the piston was moved back too far when putting a new pad, in the seal went back to far and stiction occurs farther back than it should.
This causes the piston to move too far outward to contact the pad. Normal cylinder movement appears to be about .005" out and then .005" back in on brake pressure letup. If the cylinder moves .010" then twice the oil has to be pushed down the line, with large diameter pistons this can be quite a lot of oil. As the master cylinder bore is smaller than the brake cylinder bores then the master cylinder has to move much more than it should.
Twice the oil means twice as much piston travel than there should be, remember that there is some travel that just takes up the slack in the system caused by gaps between the push rods.
So we have the pedal taking up the slack and then we will say twice the normally required travel. As the pedal lever uses mechanical advantage of about 3 : 1, we get the extra travel multiplied by 3 to make the pedal travel seem to much.

I got the seal info from this post by Glyn M. Ruck on MBWORLD.org in this post of his.
See pad break-in procedure on the Stoptech website.

This is a common problem with 2 main causes - Calipers over returning or changing the front pads without doing the rears. So tell us - did you change all the pads? If not - do so & then do the break-in procedure

The pistons in a brake caliper depend on the distortion of the D shaped seal to return them to the brakes off or resting position. When changing pads on these cars great care should be taken not to push the pistons back too far in the caliper to get the old pads out. You should just push them back sufficiently to release the old pads. If you don't do this, stiction of seals on the caliper bore can cause the piston to move forward but not bring the seal with it down the bore surface & cause the piston to over return when you release the brakes. You then need more fluid to bring the pads back in contact with the disc (rotor) which gives you a low or mushy pedal.

There are two ways to fix this - one laborious & the other risks popping the pistons out of the calipers so be carefull.

If replacing all pads does not fix the problem - then you need to remove all pads. Make up some wooden or similar spacers about the thickness of a brake pad backing plate. Insert these or old backing plates with no friction material on them into the calipers & stomp on the brakes to move ALL the pistons forward in their bores. Then push back gently until you can just slip the new pad in & you should should have cured the over return.

The alternative is to strip & dry all fluid out of the braking system. Reassemble the calipers with pads, shims, pins & all. Blow the pads against the discs with compressed air & then bleed the braking system.

Good luck - I hope your problem is just not replacing all the pads at the same time.
This is the only mention that I have seen of this reason, the question is, is it true?
https://screenshots.firefox.com/WHnv...ooks.google.ca
 

Last edited by onehundred80; Oct 14, 2017 at 04:59 PM.
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