Folks: If you still have a spongy pedal after repeated bleeding, try these ideas. 1. Is your brake pedal adjusted properly? There should be almost no "flop" or dead space. Remember, that unless your actuating rod between the pedal and master cylinder is set correctly, ( i.e.: no flop), you can never have comp[lete actuation of the brake system. It is amazing how many 356s have poorly adjusted rods.2. Perhaps a bit of air remains trapped deep within the confines of one caliper. If you've been unable to work it out through conventional bleeding, try removing one caliper from it's mounting, ( but keep the hose in place!), put a wood block between the pistons, and with the caliper held upside down, push the brake pedal about eight or ten times. Do this for each of the two bleeder valves. Now try the system. If there was no improvement, repeat on the remaining three calipers. Sometimes a small air pocket will resist all other means to purge it, inverting the caliper often forces this air out.3. Check to be sure all fittings are tight, and not sucking air, although this is pretty unlikely.4. Try my personal brake bleeding system. Just keep the reservoir filled and with a l two foot length of clear plastic tubing on your first bleed valve, open it. Now just pump the brake pedal ten strokes. Don't worry about sucking air back into the caliper, as the two foot length of hose will contain more than enough of a reservoir to prevent that. With the clear hose, you can also monitor the fluid for air bubbles. This system is perfect for a one-person bleeding It simply requires a bit of patience and about half an hour of your time.Geoff
I have to disagree with item one concerning "flop space" You need to surethat the cylinder returns to a fully off position. This means that youshould feel some free play in the pedal before it contacts the mastercylinder. This is the only position that the cylinder will open up to letres. fluid into it. You do not need much, any sense of a gap between thelinkage and the cylinder is ok. Too much in this area will result in a lowerpedal so just dial in a tiny amount , just enough to feel the gap. Theworkshop book says "just enough to realize play between the pushrod and thecylinder".Sincerely,Alan,The Stable, San Francisco
At 08:30 PM 8/7/01 -0700, The Stable wrote: Not only that, but one part of your dual system will fail eventually if you have no free play. Don't ask... I have not been able to get as much pedal with the dual system as with the single although my system brakes well. Has anyone been able to get a full pedal and how? robin