I have been trying to diagnose and repair the brakes on my 93 Tracker LSI without much luck. The pedal feels soft like there's air in the line, sometimes going low enough to cause the dash brake light to come on, but I've bled the system thoroughly several times. I'm not losing any fluid and all of the calipers and cylinders are working freely. When coming to a stop, I have to pump the pedal a time or two to have a firm enough pedal to stop confidently. The pads/shoes are plenty thick. I'm now starting to suspect booster or master cylinder, but how do I tell which one without having to buy both parts?

Adjust the rears, they should drag a tiny bit
when they are about right, after a few stops
they will stop dragging

Wild

The adjusters are working fine and the rears are adjusted as far out as they will go. I thought maybe the drums were worn out, but I just bolted on a new pair of drums this morning with no help.... The rear shoes are less than a month or two old, also...

Well your fluid is going into somthing,
the Calipers stay close, so that isn't it.

I had this problem once, I replaced the
brake shoes and did a good cleaning and
adjusting on the slack adjusters, I get good
pedal feel, even on 33" Swampers, I can lock
em up in one push.

Like I said, you need to adjust the rears until
they are dragging on the drums, you might even
go until they get hard to turn, unless you have
a bad master, but I wonder why a coupple of
pumps gives you good pedal, I would expect
there to be a leak down if the Master were bad,
and the booster just gives you power, not pedal,
you would have a feel like the engine were off if
the booster were bad, unless you have some wierd
crap going on, this is where I would look

Good Hunting
Wild

the rears are adjusted as far out as they will go

This ain't right, you should have more than that.

Are the shoes correct ?, I wonder if the autoparts
store gave you Sammy shoes, or the box was wrong
and the contents were the wrong part.

Some shoes are crap, and wear way too fast, check
with a set of new shoes for the right thickness and
Dia. the wrong ones could cause you lots of work
for nothing.

Wild

There seems to be a lot of this going around lately..

http://www.zukiworld.com/cgi/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=suzuki_talk;action=display;num=1120691563

...

What in the heck is it that we all have in common?

Uhh ohh, you don't suppose we
all got some internet brake virus


Wild

P.S. I'm running anti virus, that's
why my brakes work fine

Somebody else is up late

Yeah, I run anti-virus, but maybe my virus definitions didn't catch this one.

I couldn't tell you if the brakes were doing this in Moab or not. But, ...I really don't think they were. I think I would have noticed it more when trying to get through Golden Spike, don't you think?

So sometime after moab...

Hum.

Wish I knew what it was. I'm going back to basics and checking all my pads tommorrow. Shoulda done that before.. but didn't think it was the case with the funny pedal issue.

I haven't had a problem since I swapped
out the 4 door brakes and did the rear
shoes, I did have some brake issues when
the Trucklet was newer, after the rear shoes
got worn, they wouldn't adjust out to the
drums, I had to adjust and clean/lube the
adjusters, since then, no problems

Wild

Hmm.

I have 4 wheel disc now... But the rears are a disc/drum setup. From what I can tell, the drums are only used for the parking brake, which isn't hooked up. Regular braking uses the disc portion.

So it's something screwy with my disc setup... or something. Man, I wish I knew the bore size of the sidekick m/c. Maybe I need to put in a bigger m/c. I've bled the brakes through a couple of quarts, so I KNOW I don't have air in the lines.. I've changed m/c's AND boosters... about the only things left are the pads, and the lines themselves. I completely removed the ABS stack next to the m/c also.

So if it's not pads, then it might be that I need a bigger m/c. But.. .. I SWEAR it was working in Moab. Weird. And if I DO go with a bigger M/C (most likely FJ80) and it STILL doesn't fix it, I'll be pretty sore.

But it's also weird now how other folks online are experiencing similar issues.. and "I think" are still all completely sidekick.

Hmm.
So it's something screwy with my disc setup... or something.

I have problems with my rear disc conversion as well. But I have the ebrake on the caliper. It is OK when the ebrake is adjusted right up but as the pads wear there is far too much pedal travel. The it ratchets over and it is OK for a bit. I put it down to the calipers needing more fluid as the surface area is much bigger. Either a bigger master cylinder or a modified linkage to give more travel should solve it.
As for the rear shoes there is more than one size so you need to double check that you have the correct ones, they look very similar. I thought the dash light was only for ebrake and fluid level.

I noticed the pads for the vented disks are
not as thick as the pads for the solid rotors,
check to be sure you didn't get a set of vent
rotor pads and put them on a soild rotor

Just a thought
Wild

I noticed the pads for the vented disks are
not as thick as the pads for the solid rotors,
check to be sure you didn't get a set of vent
rotor pads and put them on a soild rotor

Just a thought
Wild

I've never seen vent drums before...

I have stock rear drum brakes and I can't get the shoes to adjust far enough out to even drag on the drum... The Tracker has had the same problem since I first got it. I replaced the rear pads thinking that maybe they were worn out and it didn't help much; the new pads had the same thickness as the old ones, which didn't look that bad. So there are actually different sized rear shoes? It looks like if the shoe was a couple of mm thicker, all would be fine...

there is 2 door and 4 door rear brakes. if you have new drums and new shoes and your adjusted right out something is either installed wrong or you have the wrong parts.

the vented comment is for the front. If you have vented pads on solid rotors it will take more pedal to compress the calipers.

Just an idea , but what about the LSPV it has a small bleeding port until what I can remember. And it really affects the rear brakes.