Brake Question

[95TransAm]

A friend of mine has a 2001 chevy malibu and i guess he was trying to change his front pads. He took out his caliper bolts and his caliper wouldnt come out (he's making his first attempt at brakes so he didnt know about compressing the piston back in to its bore), so he undid his bolt that goes into the back of his caliper thats connected to his brake line. He lost fluid and still couldnt get the caliper off, so he put everything back together, filled up his brake fluid, and started his car. He pumped his brakes until they felt firm, stopped, and his car dies out. He's fine on fluid and his brake light isnt on, it just dies. When he restarts, the pedal is loose, he pumps, it gets firm again, then when he stops the car dies out. When its off the pedal is firm, but when he restarts, it gets loose again. Apparently it just keeps doing this. I have no idea whats wrong and i told him id try and find out, thus asking for your guys's expertise.

Anyone have any thoughts?

[Benm109]

First thing he needs to do is bleed the brakes. Anytime brake fluid leaks out or a line is disconnected, the brakes need to be bled.

[bigtow]

the pedal will be firm when the motor is off because thear is no vacume assetance when the motor is running and he pumps the brake the servo is drawing vacume and the motor will race (go and try it on your car fire it up then pump the brake and the motors revs will rise) it sounds like he has a seperate problem to the brakes and when he pumps the pedal it is raising the revs just enough to stop the motor staling out. but as the previous post states he MUST bleead the braking system before he even thinks about driving the car so praphaps he could look on the motor dieing out as a bleassing in disuise

[95TransAm]

In my haste of posting yesterday, i failed to mention that he said he bled the brakes, thus the reason why i was baffled myself. I kept asking him if someone was pumping the brakes, then holding them down as he undid the bleeder screw and let all of the air out, and that this was repeated a couple times. He kept saying yes. I then said, you do realize where the bleeder screw is, that its the screw under the rubber "nipple". He thought the bleeder screw was that same screw that connects in to his line. Once this was clearified, everything went back together fine.

Thanks for the input guys