I have a 96 Ford Ranger, 2WD, 4cycl, 5 speed pick up truck. Several months ago, while attempting to remove my boat from the water, from the beach, my truck got stuck in the sand for a few hours, until I was able to get a friend out there to pull me out. Trust me, this wasn't my idea, but my stupid friend assured me it wouldn't get stuck, of course since it wasn't his vehicle, he sorta guessed. I took my truck to a mechanic not to long ago to have regular maintenance done, and asked them to take a look at my brakes, because my parking brake didn't seem to be working. They told me that my back brakes were completely rusted together, and they couldn't even get the drums apart. Aparently I'm only using my front brake pads, and it seems to be working fine "for now". I'm gonna have to completely redo my brakes, or at least that's what I'm told. I'd like to save some money and do it myself. How do I do replace all? Is there a site, etc? They said, replace drums, shoes, pads, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot.

Tom

 

If you've never done brakes before, get your hands on a good manual and have a look. By good, I mean the manuals found on ebay that are from Alldata (or the like) or the service manual used by Ford dervice departements. These manuals are very comprehensive and well detailed. Avoid succumbing to worthless haynes or somewhat better but non comprehensive Chiltons; you won't be saving much in the line of dollars.

Do an inspection on the front brakes before you replace them. Visually inspect pad thickness, rotor condition, and brake line condition. Finally, you will never know exactly what is goin on with the rears until you pull the drims. When you do that, you can actually see what you've got; heck, maybe you'll get lucky and all that is needed is an adjustment.

 

do the job yourself. it will take you at least a weekend to do, but you will save some cash. the drums are the hardest part so only do one side at a time and use the other side as a visual.

 

Thanks for advice, I'm trying to find one of those books.

 

Ebay #8030006083. You can have it on your doorstep for a total of $10.45 if you use buy it now. And yes, it's the factory service manual.

 

Thanks Bill, I checked the auction out, but bidding had ended for it. I'm going to pick up another one on ebay, I just hope that those cd's take me through every step, and very detailed, as if I knew nothing about brake, because I don't!

 

bump......