Thursday 12 June 2014

Finally fit the front pads and flush the whole brake fluid chamber

Ok so I finally found the time last night to fit the front brake pads and bleed the whole brake fluid system through completely with brand new fluid, Although it feels a little better this morning I won’t be able to test the brakes properly until the front pads have bedded in properly (a week of my short commutes)

I am hopeful that now I have new discs on the rear and new pads all round that I will notice a significant difference, However I still think I am going to need to add an additional vacuum chamber to make the vacuum brake system work properly (already bought one) and I may well need to wire a bounce-less switch setup to the relay controlling it possibly with a capacitor resistor arrangement to provide an adjustable pulse of vacuum pump time.

The current 2 relay setup (one to provide current to the vac pump, the other to protect the vacuum sensor/switch from having too much current drawn through it) is just not working reliably enough to say the brakes are “working” satisfactorily.

Wednesday 4 June 2014

Brake Disc’s and Pads arrived

Disc’s and Pads turned up on Tuesday 27th May 2014 when I arrived home I immediately grabbed them and began fitting.

The brake performance has been s#!t to say the least ever since I have had the car I am hoping this is going to help significantly, did both rear discs and pads on Tuesday evening.

Will try and do the front pads this weekend in between digging a pond (the work just never ends!) after speaking to a friend at work who knows his cars (fossil fuel cars anyhow) I described the colour of my brake fluid and he has suggested it is shot and needs replacing completely so I may well drain the lot and replace that as well at the same time, plus I am beginning to think that I will probably need an additional vacuum chamber as well as I think the pump is just not enough with such a small brake vac chamber as the Honda Beat has, I have seen Mike on diyelectriccar’s RX8 and he is using a nice looking 3 spheres chamber that seems to work well, will probably try and source something similar.

Ordered new rear brake discs and pads all round

Well it was about time for the 5-6 months I have been driving the EV the brakes have been more than a little wanting.

I have already dismantled and serviced any jammed callipers and when I did this the pads did not seem overly worn, however since then it has become apparent (now the rear brake pads are at least applying pressure to the disc) that the rear discs are shot.

I could get them skimmed but in an effort to get the job done quickly and easily I have elected to just buy new as the rear ones are nearly half the price of the fronts and the fronts are still in fairly good condition.

I also bought new Ultimax pads for the whole car at the same time, I may keep the knackered discs just to see if I could setup my newly acquired CNC to skim the disc’s as this skill could come in very handy.