Seat Inca 1.9 SDi braking issues

[Robin K-S]

Hi all, my Seat Inca is experiencing braking issues. The pedal has long travel & is spongy, but works ok if you pump it. The front hoses have recently been replaced (Jan) for the MoT & in the past year I've changed the front discs & pads & rear shoes & rear cylinders & handbrake cables, so pretty much all consumables have been changed in the past 12 months.
Reading on a few other forums, (I just googled low brake travel) the main advice is to bleed then bleed again (done), but something that keeps coming up is the seals in the master cylinder may have gone, therefore it will be leaking back into itself, so show no signs of external leak.
I suppose the question is has anyone had experience of this & if so any advice would be welcomed.
Cheers
Robin

[Robin K-S]

Also of relevance over the past few months sometimes on pushing the brake pedal you'd get an initial phase of braking, then the pedal would depress further before more braking would occur. I suppose this would follow if the seals in the master cylinder were starting to fail. Any confirmation of this would help.
Cheers

[micheal balbrig]

It might be an idea to replace the rear hoses in case they were damaged at any time.
Does brake pedal travel improve if handbrake is applied (lightly)with main brakes. Sometimes self adjusters cause problems giving extra pedal travel.

[Robin K-S]

Yeah was thinking about changing the rear hoses too, as they've been on there as long as the fronts (probably). The MoT was at the end of Jan & the front hoses had bugles, so I replaced them.
Haven't tried the handbrake trick yet, do you just put the handbrake on a little then test the brakes to see if there's any difference. I assume that if the pedal travel is better with the handbrake on a little it would mean the rears aren't adjusting correctly. I've had problems with the self adjusters before, 1 of the springs had come off, but sorted that about a month ago & bled the whole system, this was done just before the above MoT as they weren't feeling at their best.
Reading on other forums, all different cars the master cylinder leak came up quite a lot & obviously as its leaking into itself there would be no visual signs of leakage.
Gotta get on top of this as its only done 140000miles, so not even run in yet.
Cheers