REFLECTOR: Toe Brakes, again...

[Hiroo Umeno]

The second installment of the ongoing brakes saga...

My setup is a factory toe-brake kit with Matco brakes on FG SUV (std fuselage, std wing).  My brake lines are a combination of the hard aluminum line from forward bulkhead to gear bulkhead and the factory provided nylaflow line, the rest of the way.

It was a rainy day today and I decided to bleed the brake system.  I drained the system of fluid, then re-filled it.  I generally do this "bottom up" where I start filling the fluid from the lowest point in the system (bleed valve at the gear) and fill the fluid until the reservoir is full.  My thinking is that going bottom up will ensure that there are no trapped bubbles in the system.

The brake is way too "soft" for my liking, still.  There is quite a bit of toe motion when pushing on the brakes.  It is a lot more than what I am used to on Cessnas and Pipers.  On those, I get the "push back" almost as soon as I get my toe on the brakes and there is very little room to Squeeze.  On my plane, it feels like I am displacing a lot of fluid through the master cylinder.  Shouldn't there be very little movement on the pedals?  The way I understand the system work is that there should be very little fluid movement and the brake should work by pressurizing the system and not displacing.

Curiously, I found that the passenger side left brake feels "taught".  All the rest felt rather mushy.

Aside from bleeding again to check for air bubbles, what else should I check?  There are no leaks in the system along the way, either.

Hiroo

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