I have a 1973 standard beetle that I just purchased. It has front discs from Aircooled.net. Every so often the brake pedal will go all the way to the floor before any effect is noticed. Once I let off and press it again it will be fine. This only happens occasionally but it is unnerving when it does. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.
Stevie G
bleed the brakes
pull each wheel one by one, make sure pistons/cylinders are OK, make sure shoes or pads are OK
make sure your ebrake is adjusted correctly. when the pedal fails, you need something to stop with.
you never notice how nice brakes are until you don't have them. Stopping a few thousand pounds of VW is impossible without brakes (unless you can downshift with manual transmission, get it down to about 5mph, and then pull into the dirt, or hit some bushes)
Well, if you were to hit some bushes, the Secret Service would get mad at you. (some TX humor)
I thought that was why the floorboards rusted through... so you could drag your feet to slow it down... and have an aux mean of accelerating -- a true early hybrid car! ;)
In this case, don't use your manual transmission to slow down. speed up, and hit the bush right between the headlights.
Don't forget using the parking brake if the others fail to work. Saved my ass a couple of times over the years.
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Hey guys, I'm Steve's brother. I sold him the car after my two years with it. hopefully he can finish what I started :D
Anyway, for future thread searching's sake, he had the master cylinder replaced and all is normal now. Apparently, the pushrod would sometimes get stuck after braking and not return to the out position...meaning the next time you pushed on the brakes it would still be in and you would have no brakes until the rod popped out again.
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