# How serious a problem is air in your brake lines? + brake questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 5, 2003, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-serious-a-problem-is-air-in-your-brake-lines-brake-questions/211535 "2003-11-05T12:28:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Blown\_Injected](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a87d85/32.png) [@Blown\_Injected](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blown_Injected)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2003, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-serious-a-problem-is-air-in-your-brake-lines-brake-questions/211535/21 "2003-11-07T08:08:15Z")
“Rick has, as usual, done a nice job of answering several questions.” You too Gary. You two always beat me to the car answers. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Harmonix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonix)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2003, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-serious-a-problem-is-air-in-your-brake-lines-brake-questions/211535/22 "2003-11-07T12:30:04Z")
**rick** > [@](#): > > Except for the fact that this is not how Japanese carmakers source parts. Usually (and by this I mean every Japanese part I ever looked up when I was selling auto parts) the Japanese car makers only change part suppliers with a production date break (all the cars built until June have one part, the other is for cars built in July and later) or When there is a specification difference between the models in your case there is somewhere around a 200 lb difference listed between the coupe and the sedan. This could result in smaller brakes on the coupe. Bottom line is you installed the wrong part on the car. No matter how you want to try and weasel around it, you installed a part that the Honda engineers determined was not to be used on a sedan. Now there can be two reasons for this. 1) You know more about the car than the guys that designed it. Or 2) You did not know enough to understand that you made a mistake. Just because a part can be bolted to a car does not mean it should be bolted to the car. I agree. This had worried me quite a bit. But I have since discovered that the 90-93 accord sedans were indeed built with both akebono and nissin calipers. I’m still considering returning the calipers however. Sorry if I sounded defensive, I wasn’t trying to be. > [@](#): > > Also if you had a shop install the hose and pipe, why didn’t you have them bleed the brakes? > > If the fitting are torqued to specification, more torque won’t help and may in fact due damage by either breaking things, or distorting fluid couplings so that they start to leak. In general inexperienced mechanics (and you are square in the middle of this group) either leave things way too loose or get them so tight they scream. I have been using a torque wrench, and the specified torque specs according to my haynes manual for the bolts. However the brake-hose to brake pipe and brake pipe to proportionality valve connections are nuts and I have never seen a tool which measures torque on that. A shop put those parts on for me however(big O tires). also about the bleeding of the brakes. I hadn’t yet put on my calipers. bleeding them then would have been pointless wouldn’t it? > [@](#): > > I’m not sure just what you are asking here. Is there something you can flush the system with? whups, sorry my question was kinda vauge. what I meant was if there was any sort of “dirt shield” that keeps the rubber rings and such from leaking as engine oil build up on the tubes and fittings etc in an Engine. I’ve heard stories about how people would switch to synthetic and their engines would die withen months. It seemed plausable to me that the same could happen to the braking system. You however alluded to it earlier and have such answered my question. Thank you. > [@](#): > > If you were trying to see if the car could / would skid I would think that you would slam the brakes on as hard as your leg could push I wasn’t thinking about skidding it when I was road testing the car. It was after I had gotten back that the idea had poped into my head. > [@](#): > > This goes along with the comments about my brakes won’t skid, and I wasn’t really trying to skid the car. These comments sound to me like you are getting defensive and trying to cover your ass. Look I don’t care if the pedal goes to the floor or not, but if you want advice pick a goddamn symptom and stick to it. OK? Don’t tell me that the pedal sinks and twenty lines later tell me it doesn’t. HUH?! my pedal doesn’t sink. what I mean by sinking is if I put x pressure on my pedal and keep it constant the pedal would sink all by itself. That would indicate to me that my master cylinder seals were broken and there was fluid flowback. I’ve felt this before after helping my friend work on his brakes. I wouldn’t dare drive like that. > [@](#): > > Swell I’m safe but my daughter’s boyfriend is in mortal danger, wonderful, just wonderful. Also in case you have not noticed Davis has more bicycles per capita than any other city in the US. Bicycles loose when hit by cars. Ok, here i will defend myself. I live on an apartment complex very near the edge of davis. I limped the 1/8th mile on idle out to the extremely empty road at 3 am in the morning in order to test my brakes. I am not so careless as to not try and minimize any risks I take. What I did was what I consider an acceptable risk. It may not be to you, but I can and will respect that point of view. **Gary** > [@](#): > > Do the brake pedals in the three cars described actually go TO THE FLOOR? Not to a “stop,” where it feels like the pedal has hit something solid, but to the FLOOR, where if you put a single sheet of paper under the pedal, it would be tightly pinned between the pedal arm and the carpet. If those pedals are actually TOUCHING THE FLOOR, then something is wrong. Brake pedals don’t normally hit the floor on my 92 Accord, a customer’s 95 Accord I had today, nor any car I can recall in 30 years of fixing cars. Actually, I do not believe the pedal arm actually contacts the floor. However I am not postive and will check tommorow morning. My car actually did this before my brakes broke. But considering my car is salvage I’m trying not to take anything for granted. I am leaving tommorow for a trip(i’m not driving of course) so I might not be able to reply. as of right now i’m thinking i’m going to have a shop bleed my brakes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-serious-a-problem-is-air-in-your-brake-lines-brake-questions/211535.md?page=1)