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Help soft brakes for Volvo 240 90'

Jeremy240

Jeremy240

New member
Joined
Feb 19, 2025
I need help with my 1990 Volvo 240, I recently changed the rotors and calipers and bled the brakes in the correct order for the car. I still had soft brakes and looked online and thought it was the master cylinder. I did not bench bleed the new master cylinder and just installed it with the old reservoir, I spent 15 minutes on each bleeder making sure there was no air in each line and in the end I still had no pressure on the brakes. I have no idea what to do next and thinking of taking it to a shop to fix it.
 
I didn't bench bleed the master on my '90. Sometimes with fresh brake pads they feel spongey until you've really done some hard stops to bed them in.
 
Does it feel like it's losing pressure? I had a tiny pinhole in a brake hose on my 244 and the pedal felt very squishy because it would pull a lot of air. Make sure you aren't losing any fluids.

I think gas station boner pills might fix a soft pedal too
 
FWIW, when I did the brakes (rotors, calipers and a new master) on my 240, I also had a heck of time bleeding them back to a decently firm pedal. I'm not 100% certain, I think the off brand close out RockAuto master cylinder may have been faulty out of the box. Fortunately, I had a new ATE master in my parts hoard, and three bleeds later, got the pedal back.

With the off brand master, I bench bled it, pressure bled the brakes 3 times, and it never really got better. With the ATE master, it still took three times, but the pedal was getting firmer each time.
 
You have air stuck in the system. Get a small hammer and tap on various places in the braking system to jar bubbles loose. Tap lightly you're not hammering. Even tap on the master cylinder to jar bubbles loose.

The best brake bleeding for a DIY on these cars is a pressure bleeder in my experience. If you have to bleed the standard method. Be patient and maybe go around several times. I've even had cars where you had to drive it a bit with pumping the brakes to stop. Then you can finally get that last bit of air out with another bleeding session.
 
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