Brake Power

[badboys]

Hi all, just woundering if anyone has the same prob as me, which is brake performance

My car is a ford galaxy mk2 1.9 tdi , year 2000=w Reg i have a real strange problem with the brakes, first of all let me try an explain myself about the brakes, well when i got the car the brakes were fantastic but know they are no where near as good, all i done was change the front brake pads! Now i'm left with half the brake power?

 

So i would be grateful if anyone could tell me what to do, or try to find out why this is happening, I was reading on the forum about brake problem but i cant see anything that relates to my problem, the only one other thing that i have noticed is when i'm traveling alone the road and keep my foot slightly on the accelerator pedal and then press the brake pedal everthing in perfect, SO what could this be?? Vacuum lines or could be the diesel fuel pump?

 

Many Thanks Badboys.

[sparky Paul]

Welcome to the forum! :)

 

Could be a split in a vacuum pipe, pushing the accelerator pedal will tilt the engine and might help closing up a leak. There are a couple of common vacuum pipework fracture points on the diesel, I'm sure one of the diesel owners will be along soon to point you in the right direction.

[seatkid]

If your brake pedal is going rock hard, that indicates lack of servo vacuum. First place is to check all the vacuum hoses, starting with the big rigid pipe from the servo itself. The rigid pipes are prone to splitting at the ends causing a leak. From your description of improved performance with higher engine revs, I think this is the most likely reason.

 

 

If the brake performance was poor immediately after the pad change, could be you changed the pads without changing the worn discs. If the discs are worn/groved then poor performance is to be expected as contact area between a new pad and worn disc will be poor. This can improve a little with "bedding in" but rarely gets anywhere near 100%. Generally its a good idea to change pads and discs at the same time.

 

If the pedal goes to the floor then you may have flipped seals in the master cylinder or ABS block by pushing the caliper cylinders back when changing the pads, forcing fluid back to the master cylinder. Pushing the piston back should be done with the bleed nipple undone.

[Babelman]

Hi all, just woundering if anyone has the same prob as me, which is brake performance

My car is a ford galaxy mk2 1.9 tdi , year 2000=w Reg i have a real strange problem with the brakes, first of all let me try an explain myself about the brakes, well when i got the car the brakes were fantastic but know they are no where near as good, all i done was change the front brake pads! Now i'm left with half the brake power?

 

So i would be grateful if anyone could tell me what to do, or try to find out why this is happening, I was reading on the forum about brake problem but i cant see anything that relates to my problem, the only one other thing that i have noticed is when i'm traveling alone the road and keep my foot slightly on the accelerator pedal and then press the brake pedal everthing in perfect, SO what could this be?? Vacuum lines or could be the diesel fuel pump?

 

I had a split on vac line where it connected to servo.HTH :)

 

Many Thanks Badboys.