1987 Brakes
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Senior Member
Joined: Nov 2004
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From: P-Town, CA
'87 300D - 1995 M3
1987 Brakes
I have a 1987 300D. The brakes work fine, but they are squishy. I have seen stainless lines and slotted/drilled rotors. Are these worth the money, do they work I found them in the Performance Products webpage. The lines are Goodridge stainless, and there is no brand listed for the rotors. Also, are there any high perfomance pads for these? Thanks in advance.
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Joined: Sep 2004
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98 C-230
squishy brakes are usualy caused by air in the brake line. bleeding them and new pads if it needs them might help things enough to suit you. the stock brakes on my c class are good enough to make someone eat a dashboard sandwich, yes, stainless lines do help pedal feel, drilled or slotted rotors do fade less. but the pads seem to wear faster in my experince. i run raybestos semimetallic on mine, they stop things fine and have less brake dust than whatever was on it when i bought the car. if you got $ to spend, and you plan on much more horsepower than stock, upgraded brakes isn't the worst thing you could do. good luck
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Joined: Aug 2004
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From: Richmond, Va.
1991 300E
The brake fluid in my 1991 300E was really dirty. After having the fluid flushed the brakes felt much better. If your car has anti lock brakes I would recommend that you pay a specialist $100 to have the fluid flushed. With ABS you really need a special pump and it's not as simple as bleeding each wheel and then refilling.
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Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 114
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98 C-230
iv'e not had any problems bleeding air out of the lines on abs cars, but i don't do it very often. one of those pumps would come in handy i bet, but the method i have always been around seems to work for me. i always get someone in the car to work the pedal. they pump it up, i open the nipple, the pedal goes to the floor, they hold it on the floor, i shut the nipple. do it till all the air is out of that wheel, top the fluid, move to the next, rinse, repeat. maybe that's what you were talking about. and i'm not saying your wrong, i just don't see how that's any different than a pump since the brake master cylinder is at the top of a closed system. it has to push the new fluid through to the open nipple at the wheel, there is nowhere else for it to go. later
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Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 285
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From: Richmond, Va.
1991 300E
The factory shop manual says something about actuating a master brake cylinder switchover valve on the wiring harness with some kind of home made wiring device. I decided it wasn't worth my time. I don't know if that is to open the master cylinder and bleed all the fluid out of the ABS unit or what. I've got the repair pages in a PDF file. If you send me your email address I'll be happy to forward them to you.
