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Spongy with new pads fitted...

Neily03

Neily03

Professional Hippy
Messages
21,944
Today me and my bro have fitted new oem front pads to my CTR and his A2. We've both found that with the new pads the brakes feel spongy, they seem to work fine (although we're taking it easy) but just feel a bit soft. After a few miles of driving they do feel a bit better though.

Is this normal until they've bedded in??
 
Did you bleed the air out of the braking system after you fitted the new pads?

If not its easy to do with a helper and should get rid of the spongy feel.
 
Funky said:
Did you bleed the air out of the braking system after you fitted the new pads?

If not its easy to do with a helper and should get rid of the spongy feel.
Click to expand...

Yes we did bleed them as we had to open the bleed nipples to push the piston back (pushed piston then opened nipple and closed before letting go of the piston so no air should have got in). There wasn't any air in them.
As i said they have got better on both cars with a little use (5miles for me). We'll see how it goes over the next week.
 
You will still need to pump the pedal and bleed not sure of the order as I am the one that normally sits in the car pushing the brake pedal :oops:
 
Friendy said:
You will still need to pump the pedal and bleed not sure of the order as I am the one that normally sits in the car pushing the brake pedal :oops:
Click to expand...

Soory i don't think i explained the well enough, i meant that after the new pads fitted and the caliper back on we bled them again to make sure there was not air in and there wasn't....
 
The order doesn't matter AFAIK. You should bleed the brakes after you have fitted the pads by having someone push on the brake pedal while you open the bleed nipple to let any air out. When you push the pistons back in, if you think the brake resevoir will overflow from all the brake fluid then you should syphon it out of the resevoir.

The way you have done it, you could have pushed any air that might have been in the brake lines further up the lines instead of out of the bleed nipple.
 
I doubt any air has got in there. When pushing the piston back the nipple was only open while the piston was being pushed so fluid was constantly flowing out and then it was closed while still pusing to prevent it drawing in air. Then when done we bled the brakes and there was no air coming out.

They have improved with a small amout of use so i'll see how it goes this week and if need be bleed them again on saturday. 8)
 
They probably just need some time to bed in properly, also if this is the first pad change since you bought the car, it will be the new compound break pads which are meant to give off less dust, I found them to lack the bite of the original pads.
 
Funky said:
They probably just need some time to bed in properly, also if this is the first pad change since you bought the car, it will be the new compound break pads which are meant to give off less dust, I found them to lack the bite of the original pads.
Click to expand...

Yeah these are the first new pads (37.5k/33 months). I'll see how it goes over the week. 8)
 
I've done about 22miles now on the new pads and the pedal does seem to be getting firmer....
 
I've done about 70miles now since fitting and they have improved quite alot, pedal travel is shorter and they feel firmer. So give it another couple of hundred miles and they should be fine. 8)
 
Just to add something to this:

When I had my Stoptech kit fitted the recommended bed in procedure by SToptech for new pads and discs was 10 consecutive stops from 60mph-ish down to around 5mph (for fast road pads) ensuring the car didn't come to a complete stop. The whole idea being to 'cook' the materials out of the pad and deposit them onto the disc surface. Their recommended bed in procedure for track day pads is 10 consecutive stops from 80mph down to 5mph.

This goes against everything I ever though of regarding new pads and especially discs but it's what they recommended for their kit so I did it.

And boy do they stop you :twisted:

You can read more about it here
 
hi :)

you should not have to loosen the brake caliper nipples when compressing the piston (with the down side of bleed the brakes)

unless you wanted to change the brake fluid!!

using a large pair of swan neck adjusterables for front and piston winder for the rear should do the job fine. :wink:

if you still have a spongy pedal ,then there is air still in the brake lines

danny
 
Neily03 said:
Funky said:
Did you bleed the air out of the braking system after you fitted the new pads?

If not its easy to do with a helper and should get rid of the spongy feel.
Click to expand...

Yes we did bleed them as we had to open the bleed nipples to push the piston back (pushed piston then opened nipple and closed before letting go of the piston so no air should have got in). There wasn't any air in them.
As i said they have got better on both cars with a little use (5miles for me). We'll see how it goes over the next week.
Click to expand...

Best to just remove the resivour cap and push piston back, remove fluid with seringe (sp?) if need be .
 
Funky said:
The order doesn't matter AFAIK. You should bleed the brakes after you have fitted the pads by having someone push on the brake pedal while you open the bleed nipple to let any air out. When you push the pistons back in, if you think the brake resevoir will overflow from all the brake fluid then you should syphon it out of the resevoir.

The way you have done it, you could have pushed any air that might have been in the brake lines further up the lines instead of out of the bleed nipple.
Click to expand...

yes u need to bleed passenger front first, then driver front, then driver rear then passenger rear.

Bleeding by the 2 man method is not the nest of ideas, u cant never get the pedal as hard as it can be, best to use a presure bleeding kit.....or even better, a vacuum bleeder. you use a compressor and the vacuum bleeder to just suck the air straight out the nipple, works really well and is easy to do
 
Not doubting you or anything, but why do you have to do it in that order?

I have a one man bleeding kit and was under the impression that once the kit is connected you just undo each nipple till there is no air present and then tighten up and repeat for the rest of the calipers till they are all done?
 
think the ABS is split front/rear thats why.

Honda workshop manual says to do it than order anyway
 
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