ZUKIWORLD Online | Suzuki 4x4 Editorial and Forum
ZUKIWORLD Discussion Forum => Suzuki 4x4 Forum => Topic started by: Digger on July 07, 2005, 05:14:05 PM
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I have been trying to diagnose and repair the brakes on my 93 Tracker LSI without much luck. The pedal feels soft like there's air in the line, sometimes going low enough to cause the dash brake light to come on, but I've bled the system thoroughly several times. I'm not losing any fluid and all of the calipers and cylinders are working freely. When coming to a stop, I have to pump the pedal a time or two to have a firm enough pedal to stop confidently. The pads/shoes are plenty thick. I'm now starting to suspect booster or master cylinder, but how do I tell which one without having to buy both parts?
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Adjust the rears, they should drag a tiny bit
when they are about right, after a few stops
they will stop dragging
Wild
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The adjusters are working fine and the rears are adjusted as far out as they will go. I thought maybe the drums were worn out, but I just bolted on a new pair of drums this morning with no help.... The rear shoes are less than a month or two old, also...
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Well your fluid is going into somthing,
the Calipers stay close, so that isn't it.
I had this problem once, I replaced the
brake shoes and did a good cleaning and
adjusting on the slack adjusters, I get good
pedal feel, even on 33" Swampers, I can lock
em up in one push.
Like I said, you need to adjust the rears until
they are dragging on the drums, you might even
go until they get hard to turn, unless you have
a bad master, but I wonder why a coupple of
pumps gives you good pedal, I would expect
there to be a leak down if the Master were bad,
and the booster just gives you power, not pedal,
you would have a feel like the engine were off if
the booster were bad, unless you have some wierd
crap going on, this is where I would look
Good Hunting
Wild
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the rears are adjusted as far out as they will go
This ain't right, you should have more than that.
Are the shoes correct ?, I wonder if the autoparts
store gave you Sammy shoes, or the box was wrong
and the contents were the wrong part.
Some shoes are crap, and wear way too fast, check
with a set of new shoes for the right thickness and
Dia. the wrong ones could cause you lots of work
for nothing.
Wild
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There seems to be a lot of this going around lately..
http://www.zukiworld.com/cgi/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=suzuki_talk;action=display;num=1120691563
...
What in the heck is it that we all have in common?
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Uhh ohh, you don't suppose we
all got some internet brake virus
:o
Wild
P.S. I'm running anti virus, that's
why my brakes work fine
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Somebody else is up late ;)
Yeah, I run anti-virus, but maybe my virus definitions didn't catch this one.
I couldn't tell you if the brakes were doing this in Moab or not. But, ...I really don't think they were. I think I would have noticed it more when trying to get through Golden Spike, don't you think?
So sometime after moab...
Hum.
Wish I knew what it was. I'm going back to basics and checking all my pads tommorrow. Shoulda done that before.. but didn't think it was the case with the funny pedal issue.
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I haven't had a problem since I swapped
out the 4 door brakes and did the rear
shoes, I did have some brake issues when
the Trucklet was newer, after the rear shoes
got worn, they wouldn't adjust out to the
drums, I had to adjust and clean/lube the
adjusters, since then, no problems
Wild
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Hmm.
I have 4 wheel disc now... But the rears are a disc/drum setup. From what I can tell, the drums are only used for the parking brake, which isn't hooked up. Regular braking uses the disc portion.
So it's something screwy with my disc setup... or something. Man, I wish I knew the bore size of the sidekick m/c. Maybe I need to put in a bigger m/c. I've bled the brakes through a couple of quarts, so I KNOW I don't have air in the lines.. I've changed m/c's AND boosters... about the only things left are the pads, and the lines themselves. I completely removed the ABS stack next to the m/c also.
So if it's not pads, then it might be that I need a bigger m/c. But.. .. I SWEAR it was working in Moab. Weird. And if I DO go with a bigger M/C (most likely FJ80) and it STILL doesn't fix it, I'll be pretty sore.
But it's also weird now how other folks online are experiencing similar issues.. and "I think" are still all completely sidekick.
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Hmm.
So it's something screwy with my disc setup... or something.
I have problems with my rear disc conversion as well. But I have the ebrake on the caliper. It is OK when the ebrake is adjusted right up but as the pads wear there is far too much pedal travel. The it ratchets over and it is OK for a bit. I put it down to the calipers needing more fluid as the surface area is much bigger. Either a bigger master cylinder or a modified linkage to give more travel should solve it.
As for the rear shoes there is more than one size so you need to double check that you have the correct ones, they look very similar. I thought the dash light was only for ebrake and fluid level.
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I noticed the pads for the vented disks are
not as thick as the pads for the solid rotors,
check to be sure you didn't get a set of vent
rotor pads and put them on a soild rotor
Just a thought
Wild
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I noticed the pads for the vented disks are
not as thick as the pads for the solid rotors,
check to be sure you didn't get a set of vent
rotor pads and put them on a soild rotor
Just a thought
Wild
I've never seen vent drums before...
I have stock rear drum brakes and I can't get the shoes to adjust far enough out to even drag on the drum... The Tracker has had the same problem since I first got it. I replaced the rear pads thinking that maybe they were worn out and it didn't help much; the new pads had the same thickness as the old ones, which didn't look that bad. So there are actually different sized rear shoes? It looks like if the shoe was a couple of mm thicker, all would be fine...
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there is 2 door and 4 door rear brakes. if you have new drums and new shoes and your adjusted right out something is either installed wrong or you have the wrong parts.
the vented comment is for the front. If you have vented pads on solid rotors it will take more pedal to compress the calipers.
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Just an idea , but what about the LSPV it has a small bleeding port until what I can remember. And it really affects the rear brakes.
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I've never seen vent drums before...
So there are actually different sized rear shoes? It looks like if the shoe was a couple of mm thicker, all would be fine...
Yeah I had lots of problems with mine, it is an 8V Spanish model built in 2000. The books in the local parts places only list 8V up to 1994 and 16V 1994 on. The Spanish never released any service info for mine. After half a dozen goes at getting the right parts my local Suzuki dealer dug out a faded microfiche and got an old part number that the computer couldn't find. If I needed rear brake stuff after that I just asked for shoes for a 1994 Vit with 228mm drums. I don't know about the LWB shoes, I think Wild said they were wider.
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wow this is strange I had brake problems too. But the opposite. my brakes where hard as a rock to the point that the calipers where dragging on the front discs. It got so bad that after applying the brakes over a couple of miles of traffic they would be locked up and smoking. (great for doing burnouts by the way!) Geo's will smoke the shit out of the rear tires! If I let the trucklet sit for about an hour it would drive fine until I used the brakes a couple times. So I replaced everything except drums and rotors they where in spec. No luck. when I bleed the system the rear brakes where basically dry, no oil would come out. so I replaced the master cyclinder. No luck. So called Hawk Strictly Suzuki and got an entire new assebly from the master cylinder out to where the 3 brake lines connect lines. Problem solved.. My guess is it was the proportioning valve. I ripped that apart out of curiosity and everything looked fine.. needless to say I replaced all the wrong items prior to finding the problem.
good luck.
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Well, here's the run-down:
I bought the Tracker from BionicOnion and the e-brake wouldn't hold the truck and he said the rears might need shoes. The pedal was very soft. I replaced the rear shoes and adjusted the ebrake cable, but the pedal was still very soft, so I bled the brakes(when I replaced the shoes, I noticed that they didn't look that worn). This made it better, but not completely fixed. I know the calipers and wheel cylinders are working freely without binding and I cleaned and lubed the rear adjuster mechanism. I can't get the rear shoes to adjust out far enough to drag on the drum, even at full travel of the adjuster.
I figured that maybe the drums were worn to the point of being too large, so I picked up a used set off a low-mileage tracker in the salvage yard. This did nothing as the drums were the same as the original ones. After a recent trail ride, the pedal became noticable softer again. I pulled the drums and everything looked fine; plenty of shoe material left, cylinders and adjusters still moving freely, etc. So I bled the brakes again and this time I got black fluid out of the rear. I flushed it out with fresh clear brake fluid until it ran clear(total amount of black was about 2" in a 20 oz soda bottle).
Now the pedal feels like it did before, it works, but is still a little too soft for my liking. I'm not losing fluid and the lines look fine. I was starting to suspect the anti-lock mechanism, but that wouldn't account for not being able to adjust the shoes out enough to drag the drum... I found the ebrake cable might be bad on the pass side because the yoke that splits the one cable into two is canted sideways like there is no tension on the pass side, could this be causing a problem? I'm at a loss here...
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IMO ... trac/kicks just have a soft brake pedal. I don't like it either and am going to do a fuid flush and try to adjust it to be firm, but ...
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I found the ebrake cable might be bad on the pass side because the yoke that splits the one cable into two is canted sideways like there is no tension on the pass side, could this be causing a problem? I'm at a loss here...
Have you tried adjusting the cables so the yoke is level? If it won't adjust up then you could have a seized or broken cable.
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Hey Digger
The guys have all given you great advice and I'll give you a little more FWIW
- If you pull up the hand brake does it work?
- If it does and you pull it up till it just adds resistance
to your driving away does the pedal get harder?
-If it does then you've got an adjustment problem or
wrong/damaged parts
-If it doesn't then you likely have a hydralic problem
(booster/master, lines etc.)
- Are you loosing brake fluid?
-If you are not loosing brake fluid and the rest of the
system checks out you might have one of those rare
instances were you need to have the system pressure
bled due to an airlock or pocket. It's uncommon but I
have seen it 3-4 times over the years.
Hope that helps
Zag
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As far as the E-brake goes, I'm still running
the stock 2 door rears, and they are 89' parts
all stock, never been changed, and I can park
on any hill and the E-brake will hold, unless the
tires start to slip down, but that isn't the Brakes
Good points Zaggy, I forgot about the E-brake
test, I noticed this on my trucklet before I fixed
the brakes
One more thing, and I'm going to accuse you of
bone-heading the rear brake rebuild/reline, but did
you put the adjuster into the right spot ??
If, and I can't remember because it's been years
since I've had to do anything with my rear brakes,
but if there is more than one place to put the adjusters
in, are they installed too high? and are they in the right
way, if they are installed the wrong way they won't
adjust and might even un-adjust the rear brakes
I'm just throwing out some ideas, I've seen some real
strange stuff done when it comes to brakes, and I don't
put anything past a home brake job, things just get put
together wrong, unintended, but they do.
Take a closeup pic and post it, we might see somthing
that you don't
Wild
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Pulling the ebrake seems to do nothing, no resistance and wont slow the car down when moving. I'll grab a pic in the next couple days, when I'm not working...