heavychevy

Hey guys, thanks for all the help. Problem solved. I'm listing all of the symptoms in case someone has a similar issue in the future. I spent two hours at the dealer on Wednesday night with up to 3-4 mechanics looking at the car because none of them had seen the conditions that my car was displaying. You could hear all the air escaping when the brake was compressed, which lead them to think it was the brake booster, but there was still vacuum when the car was off. There was also little pressure at all going to the rear brakes, the bleeder valve at full open would just barely trickle any fluid out. So we searched for any possible pinched brake lines and found none. Also check all the connections from the brake pedal to the booster for any flaws and there were none. And as I mentioned, if you pressed the brake on idle at all, the motor would start to idle funny. The pedal travel was no resistance for 95% travel and then got rock hard at the bottom. We decided on shooting for a brake booster which I was hoping this wasn't one of those jobs that you bought parts for that didn't solve the problem and had to keep buying parts. The mechanics said that usually when the brake booster goes bad, the pedal is harder, not soft, so I had serious concerns that this may not be the answer. I helped with the removal (not at the dealer) of the brake booster and what we found was pretty crazy, the internal rear pin of the booster had somehow escaped the master cylinder shaft that goes into the booster and that whole pin and cylinder that keeps pressure and vacuum in the booster had somehow escaped the brackets that hold it tight,and was stuck outside the internal booster canister allowing all the air to escape. This created a problem with engine since the engine provides the vacuum to the booster. Put on the new brake booster and pedal feel and everything came back instantaneously, brakes work fine, they bled much better, and no engine idle problems. I meant to take some pics, but we were there all day fixing a front diff leak and rear oil leak and I was just plain too tired. Again thanks for the help, and were this unlikely event ever to happen to someone in the future hope this shortens your research and saves you time.

Yeah, it will be done at the Porsche dealership, so he has all the tools. If a line was leaking wouldn't I see fluid somewhere? I probably need to remove the underbody to make sure. Mine is custom and made from aluminum so many of the gaps of the factory plastic system are gone. But there are no leaks on the inside though.

2 updates: Update 1 (about 7 days ago): I finally figured out that if I stab the brakes extra hard, I can get the ABS to kick in in the dry. I'm fairly strong and I'm talking about standing on the brakes muscles locked (lol). So I've been doing that a lot to try and cycle the ABS and see if I can push some air out of there. Pedal feels great when I get in the car and start it, and press it a few times, but as soon as I drive down the street, it's a second clutch feel again, with minimal stopping. Update 2 (Today): While waiting for my mechanic to make time to see my car, I have been driving the car and stabbing the brakes constantly trying to get ABS active. Still practicing stops from 70-80 mph modulating the pedal to try and get some feel. Well yesterday it was raining and all of a sudden my pedal feel started to come back. It's not all the way back by any means, but it feels like a real brake pedal and not a clutch. It was wet so I wanted to see if it felt the same in the dry and sure enough it did. If I drive stop and pump the pedal there still feels like air initially that eventually gets pumped out. But where the pedal used to go straight to floor there is resistance now when I drive down the street. Still can't get into the shop until next week so I will continue to push the brakes and might even bleed them real good again before even taking it to the shop. I'm more encouraged that my master cylinder may in fact be ok and there is some air in there somewhere that we haven't found. I'm not back on track for a while so I'm going to give it some miles and patience to see how it shakes out. Thanks for all of the helpful opinions. HC

No fluid leaking, my reservoir level has not gone down at all and no fluids on the ground. The brakes are so weak I can't even lock the wheels enough to bring on the ABS. When I mash the brake, the pedal goes slowly to the floor and I coast to a stop, from any speed. I don't think the lines are blocked because the fluid flows fine when I'm bleeding them. I honestly don't know what else to check next.

Hmmm, my car (03'996 TT) does not have that feed going to the reservoir........... Is there a reason for that? Is it because the Turbos use pentosin? Not sure if the picture posted earlier was a Turbo or not. As for the bleeding, I have a Motive power bleeder and am a track rat so I have lots of experience bleeding the brakes, Lauren's technique is the one I've always used. But it feels like my brakes are only clamping at a max of 25%. Brake pedal feels almost like the clutch pedal. I can literally here air escaping in the footwell when I depress the brake. Could it be something on the inside? Is my master cylinder bad? I'm positive this isn't related to the bleeding of the calipers. Thanks for the help and quick response though.

Can someone tell me what this is for, mentioned in a prior post? I'm having some weird brake issues. My pedal goes to the floor every time, feels like there is no pressure to my front pistons. If I have to slam on brakes, I get nothing but a coast to a stop. I've bled my brakes 3 times now with no improvment. This is driving me nuts!!! My brake lines were recently changed, could it be air in the ABS or something?