MK1 1.1 Brakes

Guys/Gals,

Have just started driving my MK1 1100 Golf after about 8mths of driving a MK2 16v.
Just a quick question as i can't remember are the brakes on a MK1 always almost non-existant?? I have changed the discs/pads and bleed the whole system and no change.

Cheers!

RJ

Yep!
 

but seriously bad, like not being able to stop suddenly if you plant your foot??

That is True,

It Takes a lot of effort to stop it. I had 2 previous 1.1 & had the same problem.

Check the Mastercylinder if it is not leaking or something.

By changing that it will make a lot of diffrence.

Thanks

The brakes really aren't that great on the small-block models.

To get the best out of them, check these first:

New fluid? - makes a huge difference over stuff that looks like Guinness!
Front calipers siezed? - either the pistons in the body, or (more likely) the caliper body/hub carrier interface is rusty, causing jamming.
Rear drums' wedge-adjusters not taking up the slack correctly, causing lots of pedal travel - clean-up required.
Pivots on cross linkage get rusty, causing loss of force between pedal and master cylinder - pop the clips off the stainless-steel pivots and remove, clean, & grease.

If all this is good, and you're still not happy, you can fit the bigger calipers and 239mm discs from the GTI, but you will get much longer pedal-travel if you do nothing else, due to needing more fluid to fill the bigger cylinders on the GTI calipers.

Some good advice there.
I would highly recommend replacing the discs, pads and calipers for Gti items. Easy job - straight swap.

RJ

I have a gti master cyl & servo in my garage if you want them - I have recently replaced them with rado 16v jobs. I assume they will fit  :dontknow:  & you can have them if you wish.

Cheers
Mark

Hi i have had the same problem with my diesel,i have dumped the origional teves calipers and fitted the vw2 calipers like on the Gx models and the mk2 golfs,the discs are now 12mm instead of 10m and the brake pads are twice the size of the old type.Stops as a car should,but have not touched the servo or master cylinder,and the pedal is fine,
Bert

I'm used to pretty powerful brakes on other cars, and i don't see why the 1.1s brakes get such a bad wrap? i think they're fine . they arnt good enough for trackdays or anything! but for spirited driving around country roads etc i find no problems with them, if i plant my foot the car stops pretty quickly.