legacycentral bbs

Alright, as per Vikash's suggestion, I got my brake fluid flushed. As it turns out, the brake fluid container was dirty on the outside, so it looked a lot worse than it was. Nonetheless, the pedal feels a lot stiffer, and the brakes are responding a lot quicker.

However, there's still a lot of play in the pedal. The pedal goes down quite a bit before the brakes come on... but it's done that since the first time I drove the car. Is this just a common Subaru thing or is there something I can do about it?

My SS has a spongy pedal, although fresh fluid also helped. I think its pretty common. The stock brake lines tend to flex so a pair or stainless lines would prob help.

If your master cylinder is the same one that was on the car when it was assembled at the factory, you might consider changing it out. As the seals start to develop little leaks, you sometimes get the kind of effect you're describing. Then it starts worsening, and gets really dangerous really fast near the end.

Did you inspect the brake hoses? As the rubber wears and develops little cracks, it becomes more flexible and causes more sponginess. Of course, if any of those cracks go all the way through, that's a very bad thing.

Needless to say, if the problem is one of these first two things, that's something to fix promptly. But if the problem hasn't really been getting worse over time it seems unlikely to be something like that.

That "dead area" at the top of the pedal -- does it still exist after you've shut the engine off and used up the stored vacuum by pressing the pedal several times? If it does, you might just need to adjust the brake booster rod. There's a locknut right by where it attaches to the pedal assembly that you have to loosen, and then you can rotate the arm with a pair of pliers (it has splines on it for you to grip) to thread it in or out. There are specs somewhere about how much freeplay there's supposed to be; I'll check for them but maybe someone else has them handy.

With all of the vacuum used up, there's about a half-inch of dead area at the top where the pedal does nothing but move freely. Also, if I push past that dead area, the pedal continues to depress. It's not rock solid. I can't push it to the floor, but it'll go down a couple of inches.

Um... I'm guessing that's a bad thing...

EDIT: I've got an invoice from a Subaru dealer in 2003 that lists brake repairs. According to the invoice, the fluid was replaced and the front and rear rotors and pads were replaced. Says nothing about the master cylinder or brake lines, so I'm assuming that they're still the factory 1989-spec parts.

Probably.

I'm planning on getting SS lines myself, as I can't live with how spongy the brakes feel.

Mine don't feel spongy at all and have very little play after bleeding the system and replacing the front with WRX parts. I think the pedal heights are perfectly set up to match brake and gas. Are you guys familiar with the sponginess of American cars? I'm wondering if I'm undersensitive or if maybe mine's just not that bad.

Steve