Hi All,

It's been a minute. Used to be a frequent poster but rarely drive the faithful old 2003 F-250 these days except for chores.

This isn't a 6.0 l diesel issue, but thought I'd post here anyway as it is my home forum.

Only recently passed 80 k miles on it. Was taking it on a little drive when it began pulling to the left as I pressed on the brakes. It got worse and worse pretty quickly.

Turned around and went home and got one of the other vehicles to finish the errand and then finally got a chance to look at it yesterday.

Jacked up both front tires and they both spin freely. If I have someone press the brake peddle while turning the driver side front tire it stops and the brake is clearly applying smoothly. If I repeat the process for the passenger side front tire, it continues to turn freely no matter how hard the brake peddle is pressed.

Today i repeated the process with the rear tires. Both turn freely albeit with more force required because you are also turning the rear diff and drive shaft. When the brake peddle is pressed, neither rear tire gets any brake being applied. However, if you press the emergency brake, that does stop the tires from turning. As expected of course because it is a separate system.

The brake fluid reservoir is full and otherwise looks fine. The truck had been stopping fine and the brakes felt firm up until the point where the problem showed up all of a sudden.

Any ideas? Googled around but didn't see any hits that seemed appropriate.

 

Frozen caliper piston
but all 3 seems odd for sure

another thought is a abs controller malfunction


have you scan for dtc

any brake or abs light illuminated on dash

 

Crack the bleeder on the passenger side front caliper when someone is pressing the brake pedal like you’re bleeding it and see if fluid comes out. If no fluid, try to bleed it. If still no fluid you have a plugged line due to dirt or old tired fluid. Of course you may have a bad master cylinder.

 

The left and right front brakes come from the same circuit of the master cylinder.

If your pedal is not going to the floor, you could have two valves in the ABS lock up, twotor four brake hoses failed, or three calipers with frozen pistons. Frozen slides would still allow one pad to contact the rotor.

 

Thanks, good thought on the scan for DTC. I have a scanner so will give that a try. No lights showing on the dash, but maybe there's a code or two captured.

Good peddle pressure and the brake fluid reservoir is still full. Will be trying to bleed the brakes this weekend. Have to rig a catch bottle so that I can do it myself.

Both daughters are off to college so my usual helpers aren't around to press the brake peddle while I work the wrench at the wheel.