Disgust

Forget everything I wrote yesterday about brake bleeding, the nice new tool, etc. Let's pretend I didn't say any of that. Cuz what I thought was a decent pedal is just the end of the pedal travel. The damned thing doesn't seem to have enough travel and it barely engages the calipers. It doesn't engage the drums at all. Nada.

This seems to be a very common thread out there in cyberspace:

I have converted my car to disc brakes and now I can't get a pedal. It goes to the floor no matter how much I bleed it.

And a very common answer is this:

Check the bleeder screw orientation on the calipers. The bleeder screw must be on top in the 12:00 position. If it is not you will not be able to remove all the air from the system.

Well, that's not my problem, but I did do an ignorant thing. I failed to bench-bleed the master. I thought the reverse-flow bleeder would eliminate the need! Nope. After bench-bleeding, and resetting the "tripped" prop valve, I can now get the brakes to engage slightly at the extreme end of pedal travel if I really stand on it. Progress! But I still can't figure why I don't have enough pedal travel and whether or not my master and my calipers are compatible... seems there are these "metric low drag" calipers that require a higher volume of fluid. but it seems to me that the rears should be engaging better if that is the only issue. UGH!