Aircooled VW South Africa

Howzit everyone,

I've been working on a Type 182's brakes, after the car stood for a long time. I'm struggling to get the pedal to have a positive feel, it just falls to the floor.

The master and wheel cylinders have been re-sleeved, new flexi hoses installed, after which I've followed the Volkswagen service manual procedure for dual circuit brakes to bleed them.
I also tried setting the brakes all the way up while bleeding.
I also tried filling and leaving the brake valves open to gravity feed until they start dripping - and then bleed through normally.
I also tried pressure bleeding them back-to-front.

Any ideas?

You could remove rubber boot at master cylinder. Then confirm that the piston easily return all the way when pedal released. Sometimes stiff new rubbers and/or weak spring may prevent this. Activating lever adjusted to still have a little play where it fits into piston, so that piston always return all the way.
With piston in the fully returned position, the feed holes from fluid reservoir opens.
Also confirm that the re-sleevers remembered to drill the new sleeve in that position.

Dawie wrote: Fri Apr 21, 2023 1:01 pm You could remove rubber boot at master cylinder. Then confirm that the piston easily return all the way when pedal released. Sometimes stiff new rubbers and/or weak spring may prevent this. Activating lever adjusted to still have a little play where it fits into piston, so that piston always return all the way.
With piston in the fully returned position, the feed holes from fluid reservoir opens.
Also confirm that the re-sleevers remembered to drill the new sleeve in that position.

Thanks for this, Dawie! I've had the re-sleevers forget to drill the hole a couple times before, but I had not taken the rubber boot/spring possibility into account. Will give it a shot asap, thanks!