I've got a 94 2.3l 2 wheel drive Ranger. The other day I was driving down the road and was shocked when the pedal went to the floor with no brakes! I found that the rubber flex line on the front passenger side had broke completely in half. So, I replaced that and found that despite using Liquid Wrench and heat I could not get the front bleeder screws to break loose. They've rounded off and there is no hope in moving them. So, I tried bleeding them via the bolt where the rubber brake line hitches up to the caliper and I have brakes but maybe only 80 or 90%. I would suspect there is still some trapped air up front. Has anybody ever bled front brakes this way and is there any trick to it? I'm trying to avoid putting new calipers on the front. Also, would there be air in BOTH front brakes or if I have to replace a caliper can I get away with just the side where I blew the line?

My next question concerns the rear brakes. Despite the seperate master cylinder chamber which did have fluid in it for the rear brakes I had none when the front flex line went. So, I'm guessing the brake hardware in the back is in need of a tune up. I just did the back brakes about a year ago with all new hardware. Could it be that I simply need to do some manual adjusting with the star wheel back there? Another question...one side in the back has no working emergency brake cable so I disconnected it and took out (I think) the bracket it hitched up to. As far as I could tell, no hitched up brake cable would not affect the self adjusting mechanism of the rear brakes. Can anybody go over this for me and tell me the ins and outs of this system. Perhaps by not having a working emergeny brake mechanism the brakes are not adjusting and thus I didn't have any rear brakes.

Any advice on the fronts and backs would be great as I'm going to have to do some major brake work to get this truck working safely again. As it stands right now if I loose my front brakes again I'll have no backs to back me up.

 

Have you tried an easy/bolt out on the bleeder? I wouldn't leave it go, if you can't bleed them properly, replace things.

Sounds like the rears need cleaning and adjusting.

 

Take the caliper completely off and try some WD40 on it. Then after is sits for a little while, take a pair of vise-grips to try to break it loose. Had the same problem on the rear on a Bronco I was working on lately, but it was the rear. That's how I got it out and was able to put a new one in.
The rears don't work because you are unable to hold pressure when the front line went. Rear brakes are usually not a tight and only about 20% of your stopping ability any way. They adjust during application of the brakes while braking in reverse. So if you don't use your brakes when backing slowly, but just put it in 1st or drive, then they will never adjust up. You can pull the plug, if it has the rubber plug and manually adjust them, but the always say to only adjust until you hear them drag slightly. Then get in, put it in reverse and use the brakes to adjust fully. The e-brake has nothing to do with the adjustment.
I would bleed both fronts once you get to where you can, as when the line went some air could have gotten high enough to be pushed down the opposite side. You could probably get by with loosening the line if the bleeder is stuck on the other side to bleed air out as I doubt you have pushed it down into the caliper.
My experience has been that you replace the front pads three times before replacing the back shoes, so if you've done this lately, I would doubt that the need anything but maybe an adjustment.
Until you get all the air out of the system, your brake pedal will feel bad, and it's hard to tell what else needs to be done until you get it fixed.

 

Replace the other reinforced rubber brake lines. They age with heat, flexing, etc and will eventually fail. They are cheap and you will have piece of mind when done.

 

Thanks for the replies. I ended up replacing both rubber lines and putting new calipers and pads on. The calipers were only $15 with a lifetime warranty a piece, so it wasn't too expensive. Now I have to check the back brakes by eye to make sure they aren't worn out. Then I'll re-adjust them to drag if they don't need replacing.