Dodgy brakes??? (16v)

[Aragorn]

ok a while back i fitted a set of 16v astra calipers and disks to me nova saloon

at first they were great but over time they have started acting strange

if i start the car drive to the bottom of the street and hit the brakes they are great - nice bite etc

ok so ive now been driving around - everything has warmed thru - car is at normal operating temperature

from this point on they seem to get steadily worse, requiring more and more pedal pressure to get the car to slow down

sometimes it feels as though they are lifting or summat - ie pedal is down hard and car is slowing down, but instead of the rate of slowing down increasing with a constant pedal pressure it either stays the same or actually gets less and i can feel the pedal pushing my foot back as if im pushing against like a rubber mat or summat

then totally sporadically they will return to normal and stop nice and quick - tho never as quick as when the car is cold

also under heavy braking the car seems to dance around and im getting a lot of shudder from the steering wheel at certain speeds

any ideas??

[Alex]

Try bleeding them. May be air in the system?

[Aragorn]

yeh i will - gonna do a full fluid change but just wanted to check no-one had any other ideas

dont wanna waste all that time and effort to find its still happening

if it was air it would do it all the time tho? no?

dunno if it was very clear from my first post is that they are ALWAYS fine when the car is cold, when i read it back over it makes out that they have gotton worse and stayed like that

[Chris LR]

You can sometimes get water in the fluid, which is why you should change it every 2 years or so.

[jim sri]

yer id strongly recommend the bleedin-ud be surprised at the amount of crap that'll come out,specially on the rears.stick sum dot 5.1 in there,the best stuff,if still gives you probs then you may hav a dodgy brake servo ormaster cylinder.but yer,bleed em first and then also keep an eye on the fluid levels for a while to check you aint losing any from trhe system.
on the back of the calipers, theres a union bolt attachin the brake-pipe to the caliper,whip that off and check that BOTH the copper washers are in place(shoukld be one either side of that little union(hard to describe)), one of my 16v calipers was missin one of them once accidentally and that didnt help things!if these were at fault at all the caliper would have a slight fluid leak at the back by the union.
i got a auto bleeder too-100 times easier than pumpin the pedal+quicker.
attaches onto your spare wheel and uses the pressure from that to force fluid through the system. :wink: