i have a Volvo A30C and i was curious what it would take to get the brakes fixed and maybe get a little in-site. The brakes work but they will not completely stop you or hold you while on an incline. It feels like the brake pads are glazed over. My brakes work and the chambers Are working as they should on the slave cylinder. i have fluid pressure to the caliper. The brakes just don’t hold. Should i start with replacing the pads? How hard is it to replace the pads? Any help would be greatly appreciate!
Replacing pads is pretty easy on those trucks. This youtube vid will give you some guidance.
T thank you sir I really appreciate it. You think I should go through Volvo or go aftermarket?
Well that is kinda a decision based on usage and price. If I was operating in a area with big hills or mountains and knew I would be on the brakes alot, I would probably go with the Volvo ones (even thought they are probably made by the same place as the aftermarket).
Be careful of what you buy brake pads wise, there are, like with cars, different compounds available, there are organic compound ones, normally the cheaper option, which are softer and will deteriorate quicker, especially if your doing lots of braking under load, but don't eat into the disc. Then there are semi metalic compounds which are a harder wearing and longer lasting pad and withstand prolonged and heavy braking.... but the pay off is they do wear your brake disc quicker than the organic compound ones. Make sure you ask what the compound is, if they don't know they'll be cheap organic ones as they'll just have got the ones they can make the best mark up on.
I remember buying ceramic pads 30 years ago, when they first came out. Wore out 4 sets of rotors and the pads were still like new. Sold the truck with them and never bought straight ceramic ever again. Not very good braking power. I am sure they are better now.
Not ceramic, semi metallic, very different animals, it's the happy half way between bog standard organic crap which gets chewed away and as you described, full on hard as nails pads that grip real well but destroy the disc while doing it.
Ok guys I really appreciate all the reply’s. So we have replaced the pads on two axles the front drive axle and the front axle we still lack doing one side of the front axles. We rebuilt the calipers while there. So after all this the breaks still feel spongy I’m going to rebuild the master cylinder next to see if that helps. I mean it’s stopping a little better it’s just not how I envisioned it stopping the brakes still don’t want to really hold when in gear but when I take it out it seems to hold
have you bled the brake system?
Yes sir we bled the lines. We did not do it this way but did get the air out of the lines
OK guys we got the front and rear calipers rebuilt but now we found that the master cylinders were corroded on the inside and we need to replace them. Does anybody know where I can get these from at a fair decent price that I’m not getting raped on one price today for $600 any help with me greatly appreciated