Houston, the Eagle has landed

[swervin ervin]

Well, she's on the road again. I've got brakes and they will stop you on a dime. Perfect proportioning front to rear and no pulling. Park brakes work great. Everything is great except for one little thing. I still can't get a real hard pedal.

Maybe I'm overreacting. I have never drove a truck with 4 wheel disc so I can't say it's the way it's supposed to be or not. I'm guessing the pedal will feel some different than with rear drums. Maybe it's got a little air still in the rear lines. I don't know. I thought I would drive it a few days and see if it changes.

If not, I'll dive back into it later to see if I can improve it or find anything wrong. I'm just totally burnt out on bleeding brakes.

On another note. The doctor released me today so I go back to work on Monday. I'm having mixed feelings about that. I can't wait to get back to work, but I was really loving not working and getting paid some too.

Now, on to the next project, my dual exhaust.

[RockHQ]

Great news mike. About the brakes, my personal experiences have left a gut feeling that generally, 4 wheel discs have a better pedal feel than disc/drum brakes.

On a side note, i just got new brake drums powder coated, new shoes, springs, brake cylinders and parking brake cables. Figure i'll have them installed and lines bled in about 2 hours max. Couldn't be any easier

[swervin ervin]

Originally Posted by RockHQ

On a side note, i just got new brake drums powder coated, new shoes, springs, brake cylinders and parking brake cables. Figure i'll have them installed and lines bled in about 2 hours max. Couldn't be any easier

Yeah, rub it in. But, I've got the cool factor going for me. It sure does look good behind my TTII's.

[swervin ervin]

I was sitting here watching the Nextel Challenge qualifying and thinking about my brakes.

Before I ever touched it this time, I didn't have real good brakes. My pedal had been sort of spongey for a long time. I kept thinking it was the drum brakes causing this for some reason. Don't aske me why I felt this. I had replaced every piece of the rear drum setup last year. Best I remember, it didn't help much as far as the pedal being spongey. I had already replaced the front calipers back in May 2001. I bought them from NAPA, along with new brake hoses. I thought something was strange when I put the hoses on and they didn't fit exactly right. I had to make them work because I checked and they were the correct hoses. Now, I'm starting to have doubts about the calipers and hoses both. My pedal now isn't much different than it was before.

I think I'm going to see if I can find some new, not rebuilt calipers tomorrow. I might get hoses too. The more I think about this, the more it rings a bell in my empty head. When bleeding the brakes today, every time I would bleed the front, the pedal went to hell. Only bleeding the rears seemed to help a lot. I know I've run this topic in the ground and I'm sorry everyone is having to hear all this crap. It's just I don't have anyone here to tell this too that understands about these things. I would bet money there is no air in the lines. It's got to be something really simple and I have been beating the bushes in the wrong place.

[shavedchevy]

Congrats on getting evrything to work out for you.... persistance sure pays off

I've sure learned alot from your threads and I'm sure quite a few others have aswell

[N2TRUX]

Originally Posted by swervin ervin

..... Everything is great except for one little thing. I still can't get a real hard pedal.........

Mike it's good to hear you finally got the brake issue resolved. Sorry to hear about your little personal problem though

You may be on to something though. You may have an issue with the front lines or calipers. If hadn't already changed them, I would swear you had front lint that were expanding. Since you already changed those I'm kinda stumped....

[Grim Reaper]

Bleed the Combination valve. It's impossible to get it bleed once it's dry. Thing about the inlet and outlet. The air is trapped at the top in the rear circuit.

Fill your reservior. Loosen the inlet line a fe turns so it's leaking and tap on the CV a little with a wrench to dislodge the air. The master will be gravity bleeding so no air will go back up that line but the tapping will get it to burp the air in the CV. See how it does after that.

Front always bleed driverside first. The Diverside is the high out let so that will get hte air out the fastest.

Another way to get the CV bleed is the revese bleed method where youforce the fluid back from the caliper to the reservior.

Trick my buddy uses is to pull Vacuum on the reservior. He taks a old cap and installs a fitting and hooks it up to a A/C vac and pulls a 5-8hg and iut will pull the air back up or prove beyond a doubt there is a seal leak if it can't hold the vac.

[ocbaud]

the newer trucks i've drove with 4-disc did feel softer than my truck

[87 STEPPER]

Congrat's Mike

[gchemist]

So when are you going to try for top speed????
Nice work.

[aliencheyenne]

There is an old school method that may help the soft pedal. Take the top off your m/c and put a piece of cheesecloth or something on top of the m/c that will catch anything that tries to drop.
Use a stick to depress brake pedal in down position and leave it that way overnight.
Put top back on m/c before releasing pedal