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At 2:03 PM -0500 11/2/97, Greg Merritt wrote: > Whew! Kisten's just off to work in the '71; my fingers are crossed... ...and she came back home about 5 minutes later. :( It's *going* fine--it's the stopping that's the problem. Braking has lots of pressure, but is very hard--and the brakes don't grab very well. Have to push awfully hard, and the car doesn't come to a stop quickly--especially at greater speeds. Also, the pedal doesn't return all the way to the top--the last half inch or so just doesn't happen. The car hasn't hardly been driven in the past couple of weeks due to the "going" problem. I thought it might be stuck calipers (even though they're new as of summer). Jacked up the front end & popped off the wheels; I was able to slide the pads & pistions back into the bodies very easily with channel locks. I hopped inside the car to pump the brakes back up & bring the pads back into contact with the rotors... the pedal went to the floor & didn't come back up! After working it back & forth a couple of times, it pumped up again--the pads contacted the rotors. I shot some silicone lubricant onto the pedal cluster (actually did that *first*), but that didn't seem to help. The braking may be a tad better, but the problem is still basically there. (Doesn't help that we've been driving a car w/ excellent brakes--the '69.) I'll check the rear cylinders next--my gut feeling is to bleed the brakes. Could there be crap in the lines that makes the braking effort excessively hard? Corrosion that got worse while the thing sat mostly idle for a couple of weeks? Could anything besides a crusty, dry, corroded pedal cluster prevent the pedal from returning fully to the top? -Greg '69 & '71 Squarebacks '63 Beetle