caliper rebuild, now spongy brakes

[charley240sx]

hello there, i rebuilt my calipers in my 97 es300 yesterday, both front and rears with OEM toyota rebuild kits, flushed the system with the car off. by the time we finished, it was late, and as i was leaving, my buddy backed the car out and said it felt funny. then i got in and noticed that it indeed felt funny. He thinks there is air in the abs system, is this possible?
if so, how do we bleed the abs? or are we supposed to bleed the car with the engine on?
Please help, school is starting very soon, and i wont have a whole lot of time to work on my car.
Charley

[Mole]

how did you flush the system in the first place?

to bleed the brakes, engine is off, pump the brake pedal until stiff, hold on the stiff pedal, open and close immediatley or until brake fluid gushes out.

did you use new brake pads and new or turned rotor?

did you pump the brake to bleed? assuming you pressed the piston way back into the housing, braking feels weird when the piston is far from the brake pad.

[akora12]

I rebuilt all four of my caliper and didn't need to mess with the abs system. How many bleed cycles did you do for each caliper?

[99BlackSandv6]

Mole is all over this one. If you did it right you should have a solid feel. Just rebleed and get all of the air out. I don't think anything needs to be done special with the abs, but if you messed something up and got air in the abs block, that might be a but of a hassle to bleed off.

[charley240sx]

how did you flush the system in the first place?

to bleed the brakes, engine is off, pump the brake pedal until stiff, hold on the stiff pedal, open and close immediatley or until brake fluid gushes out.

did you use new brake pads and new or turned rotor?

did you pump the brake to bleed? assuming you pressed the piston way back into the housing, braking feels weird when the piston is far from the brake pad.

in all honesty, this was the method that i am familiar with, but with my buddy, hes been bleeding brakes ( and the method that we used for my car) was to open the valve without touching brakes, then press pedal until pedal is down and close valve.
the system did run dry, while the calipers were off and being rebuilt, so we bench bled the master cylinder as well.
but just to give a rundown of the process again
turn key to accessory position( i think)
brake pedal up, open bleeder valve
press on pedal until pedal to the ground, then close valve
release pedal
start all over again.
we didnt use new pads either after school tomorrow im going to bleed the system with the method that i am familiar with.

Thanks
Charley

[LEE337]

to bleed the brakes, engine is off, pump the brake pedal until stiff, hold on the stiff pedal, open and close immediatley or until brake fluid gushes out.

did you use new brake pads and new or turned rotor

This is how you bleed the brakes. Listen to Mole.

You DO NOT open the bleeder valve and then press on the brakes.

Also:
New or turned rotors, use new pads.

[charley240sx]

is this like an older method or something, because when i asked my buddy he said that his father, and brother in-law had been using this method.
but like i said, i personally never done it this way, i use the way mole had mentioned.
thanks
Charley

[Mole]

no key in ignition...

[charley240sx]

ok, thanks

[Mole]

if your friend was doing the pump the brake with the bleeder open, did you have a bottle of brake fluid open upside down on the brake reservoir?

(flushing-this method, pump a couple times bleeder open, followed by my earlier post of bleeding.)

[solara90]

i know with some ABS systems you actually have to use a scanner to bleed the abs system. We had an 2002 alero in the shop one time and bled ever line about 15times, ended up hoking up the scanner and went through the bleeding process on that and wolla firm brakes.