My old 98 camry (wife drives it now) is having an issue where the brake pedal travels to the floor while the car is running. When the car is off after pumping the pedal a couple of times the peadl becomes firm. We have changed the front pads and rotors as well as the master cylinder. Has anyone ever seen this? Any suggestions on repairs or things to check?

 

Was the master cylinder bench bleed before installation?

 

I believe there is a vaccum assist for the brake booster and if it breaks those are the symptoms you get.

 

when I replaced my master cylinder with a new one, I bleed the chambers BEFORE connecting the lines. The new cylinder came with 2 bleeder "caps" that have 2 hoses that are to be run into the fluid chamber.

with the caps on and the hoses to the fluid chamber, I pumped the brakes to bleed the air. It took a while!!!

It is more difficult to bleed it trying to pump the air through the lines down to the calipers. Just be patient and keep pumping the brakes...

 

The Master cyliner was bench bled I'm not that much of a noob. The booster seems to be holding vaccum.

 

If you need to pump the pedal (engine off) for it to become firm there may still be air in the system. With engine on the booster may be amplifying the problem.

Let the engine run for a few minutes then shut off. Depress the brake pedal a number of times. The lowest point of travel (at the bottom of the stroke) should decrease with each stroke.

On occasion a flex hose between the chassis and steering knuckle will fail and start expanding too much when pressurized.

Where the sliding pins free on the calipers?