I just completed a rear axle swap from a Saturn Redline to my 2006 2LT today, but i am having trouble with a soft pedal. I bled the system multiple times, drove it, repeated, and still no luck. i have ABS, any ideas?

 

Does the pedal 'pump up' with repeated pumps ?

 

you had rear drums. did you use the same master?

 

This has been done before, and from what I've read the guy didn't change the proportioning valve. He said everything worked great. One difference I noticed is he used stainless braided brake hose in back... That would give a firmer pedal over standard hose.

Another thought, don't ABS systems need to be pressure bled? I thought I read that somewhere?

 

Usually ABS systems can be bled just like any other system. Stainless lines aren't going to make that much of a difference. They might make good brakes feel better, but they aren't going to make bad brakes feel good

 

"they aren't going to make bad brakes feel good"

I didn't say they would, just passing on info from a guy that already made the conversion, and from what he posted, with no problems.

 

I had rear drums, same master, nothing changed except rear axle swap, plug and play, i had someone pumping, and it never really got "hard" it is frustrating, i think I read somewhere that it is a "pressurized system" or something.

 

I remember on chrys. minivans they had to be blead with wheels on the ground they have a proportioning valve in the rear.Maybe HHR has same setup?
Just a thought...
Happy HHR_ing

 

Have you made (or maybe I should ask, can you make) the ABS cycle at all?

If you get air in the ABS pump, you can have a soft pedal. You might need to cycle it, bleed, and cycle again, but that worked for me when I had problems like that on my last (non-GM) car. I ended up pushing out quite a bit of fluid, but got it eventually.

 

I don't know if this is the case with the HHR (although I do know they do have multiple masters), but that's why I asked you about the master. Every car I've ever worked on (25+ years of builds and restos) has had different masters for drum/drum, disc/drum and disc/disc set-ups.

Some people will say that they didn't need to change the master and everything worked fine, but if they ever used the proper master they would see the difference

Drums and discs need different amounts of fluid and pressures to work properly. That is dictated by different sized bowls and also proportioning valves.

You might possibly just have something as simple as air in your lines, but I just wanted to thow this out there for you too.