wish i was more help on here instead of asking questions all the time!!

but here is my story and question

about two months ago i had a caliper sieze on my (drivers front) well ever since i changed it and new front pads, it seems that i just dont have the stopping power that i used to have. well tonight i decided to bleed all my brakes and put new fluid throughout hopeing that this would cure my problem, well i just wanted to know how you guys bleed your brakes. heres how i did mine.

i bought a couple of quarts of fluid and one of those one man bleeder hoses with the check valve. started with the pas rear brake, hooked up the hose, opened up the bleeder valve, went and started pumping the brakes with full strokes, making sure not to run the resovoir dry. i kept pumping until the fluid was clear and then tightened up the valve. i did this with the rear then went to the pass front, now this one was a slight problem, the hose kept coming off while i was pumping the brakes, so i got the girlfriend to come out and pump the brakes except when i saw that the fluid was clear i told her to hold the pedal down until i tightened the bleeder valve, and i did the same with the last front brake. the reason i got her to hold the pedal down was cause i read on here thats what you have to do when someone is helping you, buti didnt do the same with the rear.

here my question, did i bleed the brake correctly??? and upon taking my truck for a test drive, my brakes still feel like they arent up to thier full strength allthough they do seem slightly better. it seems i got good brakes halfway throght the pedal but if i were to jam on them trying to lock them up they wont lock up, what do you guys think, i bled the brakes right or perhaps i have other issues, like its all in my head there is nothing wrong???


thanks and sorry i was long winded!

 

If your girlfriend is willing to help you out, bleed them the old fashioned way on the ones you have in question, and maybe that would cure it.

 

whats the old fashioned way strokin?

 

Have someone pump the brakes then hold them to the floor. Then you release the fluid. Then close the valve and have her/him pump them again. Do that for ALL the wheels. I am sure that is what Kris is talking about.

 

if your girlfriend was pumping the brakes while you had the bleeder screw open you were probably sucking some air back into the system. like Tom said with the bleeder screw closed pump and build press and hold steady on the peddle until the bleeder screw has been opened and then reclosed then repeat until fluid runs clear. If this is what you did im sorry it just dosent read that way

 

Yep, my dad and I fought the brakes on his 90 dually last month. That is a nightmare compared to the brakes on our trucks. But we learned this, the one man bleeder is worth a cr*p. the old fashioned way, as mentioned by mndiesel, works best. My dad and I ended up hooking the air gun with a suction hose on each bleeder to get his truck braking correctly. NIGHTMARE!

 

You have ABS and they aren't going to lock-up, the computer wont let them..

When you get about half way down the Antilock takes over and then it doesn't matter how much force you exert..

You have them bled right already,

You can almost put them to the floor and they still wont stop any faster or quicker..

 

Assuming you have all the air bled out of the system and your pedal is nice and firm, very near the top of the stroke.
Each brake pad manufacturer uses thier own "recipe" for make the friction material. I've been through this in the past with one of my customer's cars. Everything was correct, brakes bled out two or three times and the vehicle kept rolling!
Turns out it was the pads themselves, the customer wanted extra HD brakes because he was a carpet washer and he carried some heavy equipement in his van. I put in some semi-mets, thinking it would do him some good. They would work for about 300 yards then fade to nothing. The pedal never went down like the brake fluid was boiling, but instead it would act as if the rotors were greased. Nice hard pedal, but no stopping power at all.
Changing to organic pads restored the brakes, but I told him that he would be feeding pads to that van because of the weight that he carried around. He didn't want to hear that and I never saw him again so I don't know how it turned out.
With that lesson learned, I only use pads that are manufactured by the factory that supplies the OE pads and that seems to work the best. Some of them even have the logo on them, even when purchased aftermarket. They are not supposed to due to copywrite laws, but some of them just slip through the cracks.
When it's time for my Ford to get re-shod, then I will search for OE pads, even if it means going to the dealer and paying the extra for them. I have 80,000 miles on my pads right now and they are still more than 50% left to go and it stops GREAT for weighing 5 tons.

 

One other idea, while you bleed the brakes have the truck idling, due to the hydroboost system.

 

hey kwik, last night i was thinking the same thing you said, maybe the pads i got are crap allthough i paid 120 bucks the the front set, i had my brakes redone last year due to a warped rotor, and whichever brake pad they used worked really, really well, but since the new pads after the caliper siezing is when i have noticed this weak braking. maybe i will have to go to ford and try out a pair of factory pads again, and if that dont work then i will still have the old set that only has about 600 miles on them, i could use them later down the road, so to speak, haha