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coming home today noticed brake pedal was pushing down farther all the time. 93 f250 diesel. went to autozone and bought the brake master cylinder and the brake power booster. I don't have any leaks. when i tried to bleed the brakes, the passenger side the fluid shot out, and the driver side barely came out. the guy at autozone said if it is the power booster it will make a woosh sound when pressing on the brakes. It does make a woosh sound where air is coming out at the brake pedal, but I also have a 96 f350 which makes the same sound. I don't know whether to try the brake master cylinder or the power booster first, and why does one side of brakes when bleeding come shooting out and the other side seems clogged.
you guys have never let me down yet.
power booster $119
master cylinder $36
Did it not want to bleed the drivers side front and back?
Or just one end?
I would take the bleeder screw all the way out and clean the passages out. Probably has some rust or other crud blocking the hole. If you can get it to bleed like it should you may be able to return both new parts.
I would change the master cylinder before I did the booster.
It could be that your flex hose goin to the side that isnt bleeding properly is collapsed inside.i would remove it and check it for obstructions.(try some compressed air through it,both ends.)
the bleeder screw was plugged up with crud, you were right Dave. I bled the front brakes, but it just seems to have to much travel still. How can you tell when the master cylinder is bad. i haven't replaced anything yet. hoses are ok.
trader rob nailed it for how mine acted when I replaced it once, the other time it went down rather fast.
Master cylinder is usually good pedal to start, but as you sit there the pedal just keeps going down. If you sit there long enough with your foot on the brake, your truck will run off till you pump the brake pedal
okay, i guess you have me convinced about master cylinder. the only thing is i have a 96 f350 also and i can push pedal slowly down, but it does seem to have a little more pressure, my 93 which is the bad one does stop before it hits the floor, i bled the brakes, but i can push the pedal down pretty far.
thanks for the help, guess i will try master cylinder, never done it before, any tips on changing it.
thanks again
one more thing after reading all the brake posts with the same problem, it seems like everyone replaced the master cylinder, hydro booster, and vacuum pump, but it didn't seem to fix the problem. I still have not bled back brakes yet.
Once you change your master cylinder you have to bleed all the brake's quite thouroly because there will be air in the lines. while you are down at the rear brakes check them to see if they are ajusted properly
I logged in this mornin to ask exactly the same question. We installed new rear brake shoes and manually adjusted them. Started it up and the brake petal would slowly keep goin down. Went to Advance Auto and got a new/rebuilt master cylinder, charged it and bled per instructions, installed it and bled all the wheel lines. Still the same problem . No leaks anywhere, but the petal will not stay up. A friend mechanic said it could still be the master cylinder, that the "new" one could also be defective.
Hey guys, was the engine running when you bled the brakes. The engine runs a vacumn pump for the brake booster. When you shut off the engine vacumn is stored in the vacumn chamber behind the master cylinder. If you bleed the right side first you may get a good shot of fluid because of the stored vacumn. When you changed to the other side it probably had lost its vacumn and it only trickled out because you had no vacumn assist. Try bleeding each side with the engine running you will probably notice each side works about the same.
I've got a 93 F250 and it was doing similar things, brake pedal would go almost to the floor. Turned out it was the adjustment in the rear brake. Just tweak that up (both sides) and away we go....good as new. Also, be sure to bleed those brakes real good. Even just a little bit of air can give you dramas.
glad to see some more replys, i was getting frustrated because everybody was buying parts and it was'n't fixing anything. PureGrunt, did you change your brakes at all before adjusting, i have seen two people now that it was the rear brakes. i did bleed mine with the engine on. i have not replaced the rear brakes in years. but i don't see how that would cause the pedal to slowly go down almost to the floor. did yours go to the floor. I am going to change my rear brakes if my kids give me a chance to this weekend. I change the front ones one week before this started happening, in a panic i went and bought the master cyl. and brake booster, but i always go to this site before i do any work, because i can't afford to blindly throw parts at it.