Ooops. Sorry,I thought I was answering another post where the poster ran over a battery.

I'm old and easily confused, lol

 

Not at all. As far as I can tell, the drive-train is very healthy. I'm not too worried about it making the trek, but from what I can see this truck has been neglected badly as far as routine maintenance goes. Some of the things I've seen on it, if I didn't know any better I would swear the previous owner was a monkey with a toolbox.

 

This is what happens when you have a dozen threads opened in tabs.

Many are... OR WORSE!
Thankfully I've had my truck since nearly new and have no one to blame but myself.

 

I know yours don't look exactly like this, but I suspect the part between the wheel cyl and shoe is not in right.

 

I thought the exact same thing. Didn't make much sense to me either but it was the only option I had left.

I remembered I had a one man bleeder tool and decided I would give it a shot. Of course it was a real PITA, two of the bleeder screws were COMPLETELY rounded off (like I said, monkey with a toolbox) and my damn vice grips were nowhere to be found... Got it eventually and it solved the problem. Stopping perfectly now, no shaking or anything. Thanks for all the replies everyone.

 

Sounds like you have something together wrong or you got the wrong parts

 

Have a safe trip!

 

I would be curious as to how you got air in the system with out opening it

 

Possibly a bad seal on one of the wheel cylinders would be my guess. I would have replaced them as well...

 

That's what I'm thinking as well. I drove it probably about 30 miles so far today and I am not having any issues. I only didn't replace them now because I couldn't afford to (bought and installed a new radiator as well). I've got about a month until my trip, I'll probably pick some up next paycheck.

After that, all I have left to do are my wheel bearings and seals, and possibly bushings and she should be good to go.

 

If the wheel cyl would let air in, it would POUR brake fluid out

 

Yea you would think so... All I know is that after I changed the brakes, they were spongy and barely stopped the truck. Then I bled the system, and they work great..



If I would have assembled them improperly, or used the incorrect parts, you would think that they wouldn't be working better than they did before I changed them. It seems to be doing great after all the driving I've done today.