vfilby

I recently had to lay on the brakes pretty hard on my '98 1500, and they haven't felt quite right ever since. About half the travel of the brake pedal does nothing (no brakes engaged), after that the brakes engage but not as easily or smoothly as before.

Also the parking brake light is permanently on since the incident.

I am pretty sure the front rotors were warped prior to this because there was a bit of pulsing in the truck when braking at low speeds, I am not sure if that is relevant or not to the above symptoms.

Any thoughts?

rjsasaoka

My '92 does the same thing after the piston on the wheel cylinder popped the boot and sprayed brake fluid all over the inside of the driver side rear tire. Got it back together and adjusted correctly and now the rear drum brakes don't work with the brake light on constantly.

I think I'll have to try and bleed them again, this time correctly with a tube and container of brake fluid so that the air doesn't go back into the lines. Right now, I can still use the emergency brakes, but they don't hold very well. Also when coming to a stop, I can tell that only the front brakes are working...

If worse comes to worse and bleeding the rears don't work, I'll have to take it in to the shop for them to troubleshoot.

shawnvw

Do a complete check of the brakes. fluid, lines, pads& rotors, shoes&drums. Set the rear brakes up if they don't need replacing, try opening the bleeders up 1 at a time and just let it gravity bleed for a minute or so and watch for any air bubbles. If you do get air, let it drip untill you have solid fluid.

rjsasaoka

My friend and I had the rear drums completely disassembled. Got the boot back on the wheel cylinder and check it. It wouldn't engage the brake pads, but the emergency does work.

Before getting it all back together again, checked the master cylinder... here's the funny part, while the cover was off of the resevoir, he said "see if you see anything", he pressed the brake and the fluid shot up, hit under the hood, all over my arm, hands, engine, steering wheel shaft and engine well... I yelled out so he wouldn't press the brake pedel again and then he said "it shouldn't have done that".... (nss)

He tried to bleed the rear, but I think because we've been working on it all day and were tired (not to mention the 2 beers that I had), forgot to have that tube attached with the container of brake fluid so that the air wouldn't get sucked back in when the pumping the brakes to bleed them...

shawnvw

I have seen masters shoot up like that before so it may be normal. you don't NEED the hose on the bleeder when bleeding the brakes. Have somone pump the brakes 5 or 6 times, then hold it down. Open the bleeder and allow the fluid to shoot out. Close the bleeder, and then the person inside can let go of the pedal. You may have to repeat this numerous times untill you get solid fluid coming out.

Flying Low

after having some brake work done, started out just pads and turning rotors. well.... this (mechanic) started the phone calls telling me how dangerous my 97 truck was, trying to sell me everything under the sun. He said he could not bleed the breaks because the master cylnder was bad.
I finally talked to an old man at the dealership who told me to take it out into the wet grass, and cycle the antilock breaks several times. seems air can get trapped in them.
This fixed my problem.

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