Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

I have a problem with my Tourers brakes. The pressure is very bad. To slow down the car the brake pedal has to be pressed down very very deeply. It feels very soften.

My garage did the following:

1. Renewing of all 4 brake hoses, bleeding several times. Result: no positive effect, brake pressure as bad as before

2. Exchange of the Anti Lock Brake Modulator (I found an identical one at a scrapyard), bleeding several times. Result: feels sligthly better, but still horrible

3. Renewing of the master brake cylinder, bleeding several times. Result: no positive effect, brake pressure as bad as before

They checked the brakeforce on a dynamometer. It turned out that the rear brakes are doing only a third of their usual brakeforce.
All 4 discs and pads looking still well.

Any Ideas ??

Have you checked the Brake Servo is working correctly, with the engine off does the pedal feel any firmer?

It doesn´t feel any firmer (I just tried again)

Bear in mind if the engine has been running before the "engine off" test, the servo should be retaining vacuum. Each press of the pedal will release a little of the vacuum, until, when it is completely exhausted, the pedal will travel a bit then feel very solid.

Brake servo

or very worst case, faulty abs module (very rare fault).

Sounds like the problem is excess brake pedal travel?

In which case, assuming the pads aren't down to the limit, it's likely to be sticking rear caliper pistons. Probably easier to swop out the whole unit [about £45 each] or source repair kits if it's just the one side. When the bearings rust away that support the hand brake cam you need to change them anyway.

Make sure that you have all the shims in place and that the caliper floats nicely on the carrier pins when you reassemble.

Thanks for your advices. I will discuss this isues with my garage.

Some questions:
1. Could there be a problem with the "valve assembly brake", part no. SJD100990 ?
2. Is there a brake force distributor somewhere ? I can´t find it.
3. Maybe the brake pipes are the problem ? The brake pipes at the bulkhead area looking badly affected. The brakes wouldn´t work at all, though, would they ?
4. Are brake pipes still available ? Nothing at Rimmers.

Whilst that pipe does not look that clever nothing a spot of rust killer and paint would not tidy up to make my MOT man a little happier however if it was not good enough it would be leaking fluid. ANY fluid loss you would know about rapidly either with no brake foot to floor scary senario or brake reservoir looking level. Done attack it too hard either.
If pipes are not available I would replace with cupro nickel pipes anyway - these can easily be made up either for you or yourself with a flare tool. The cheap ebay ones do work but are hard work especially on cupro nickel pipe. I would also replace the fittings with brass ones from automec etc. But this is not a cheap but a long term fix as they just do not rust and degrade. But then again both my cars are also on silicon fluid as this reduces internal rust to a minimum as it is not hydroscopic like DOT 5 fluid is (and it does not strip paintwork when split either!)
If you doubt it - replace it when brakes are concerned.

Not sure of your location but if outside the UK ,before changing any tubes to Cupro Nickel ones, make sure that local vehicles regulations allow it. Some countries insist on like for like replacements.

Chris216416 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 17, 2018 11:29 pm Some questions:
1. Could there be a problem with the "valve assembly brake", part no. SJD100990 ?
2. Is there a brake force distributor somewhere ? I can´t find it.

SJD100990 is the brake force compensator valve. I have had one of these fail, albeit on a non-ABS 214. My WSM does not show things very clearly, but there is a small black rubber plug on the side, which is designed to rupture and weep fluid if an internal fault results in high pressure getting where it is not wanted. This was what alerted me to mine failing, though I couldn't feel anything drastic in the performance of the system.