Brake probs

New member first post. I searched and searched to no avail. I found one thread who had the same problem but it just died. So here I am. Please don't flame.
I have a 2005 Tacoma and I just did a front brake job, calipers included. My brake pedal has seem to be always on the softer side but now it is softer than before. Wierd thing is it feels great when the truck is off ,but one it is turned on it goes virtually to the floor. While doing my test drive I also noticed a humming noise from the dash area when I got in them hard.
The threads I did read always suggested the MC. Would my pedal still feel great when the truck was off if my MC was bad? Any and all help will be appreciated.

 

did you bleed the brakes?

 

This! If you already did then you should bleed them again. The noise you're hearing could be your anti-lock activating since you "get in them hard"

 

What was the original issue?
Did you do the work yourself?
What was replaced?
Aftermarket parts?

 

Calipers were locking up. 130k bought used a couple of years back. Yes I did the work myself and did bleed. I'll go through the bleeding process again. Front Rotors, calipers and pads were replaced using after market parts

 

My pedal goes much closer to the floor than a lot of other vehicles. To an extent, soft brakes are normal in these.

Any chance you missed a washer or o-ring when you moved the brake line over to the new caliper? If I remember correctly, there's one of each. If so, that could cause air to get in or fluid to get out when under pressure.

 

There is always a chance. I am going to do a day trip with the wife in her ride and will do another bleed session while giving her a once over. Hopefully it was me not bleeding it thoroughly.

 

adjust the rear brakes

 

Rear brake adjustment will only be a new issue if they were meddled with at the same time, otherwise they should have maintained adjustment from prior to front brake work.

On some vehicles, the ABS can make brake bleeding a bit more of a challenge. I'm not sure if Tacoma is one of these or not.

One thing I will say, if the pedal drops more easily when the engine is running, then it sounds like your brake booster is working!!!

 

I have the exactly the same problem with my 2013 Tacoma, bought it used with 50k miles the pedal was low but seemed to have hard spot of stopping but the pedal was low. Replaced the front pads with OEM Toyota and new caliper pins, and thinking now Im going to have a high and tight pedal,nope I got the complete opposite low and soft,also the pad slowly sinks at a complete stop and feels very soft at a stop, other than that the truck stops very good. Also bled brakes used DOT4 the old way pump,hold,open,down,close. This didn't help the issue so I got a MIGHTY VAC sucking machine tried bleeding did not help, all in all bled brakes 4 times. Took it to a Toyota dealer and a private shop(top knotch) was told that this is NORMAL, I thought also it was a Master cylinder but was told by the experts alls well its just how Tacomas brakes are! Not satisfied I removed looked at and cleaned the rear brakes, the star adjusters were gunked up so cleaned lubed everything,adjusted, still didn't help. Started surfing the net and PM other members that have this issue(a lot) and nobody has a solid answer, found this link and tried it and has helped better than anything I have tried yet http://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/better-brakes-bleeding-actuate-the-abs.559149/ . If you want you can PM me I can tell so more but doing the brake lockup method made the pedal harder and higher with a better feel. but the pedal still doesn't feel like a hard stop when at a stop, im going to bleed one more time if doesn't improve I will call it normal(sucks) and live with it. Also I didn't crack the bleeder screws when pushing in pistons so that could have caused it. Anybody has any input or ideas please PM me. still not satisfied with pedal

 

Did any of this work to harden the soft feel of braking?

 

the rear brakes were way out of adjustment, since I adjusted them up the pedal is much much better