I redid all my brake lines and went to bleed the brakes tonight but discovered the bleeder screws on the front wheels were rusty and not in good shape. i was able to get the passenger side off with vise grips but the drivers side is stuck on there. i tried everything from pb blaster, to the propane torch, hitting it with a hammer and combination of them all. all that i got for it was a bleeder screw that dissengrated on me.

so i headed over to advance and got a new caliper for $20 after core. took off the caliper and that's where the fun starts. the backing of the inside brake pad had a little bit of rust on it and s small section of it missing due to the rust. i'm not sure if it matters if I just put the backing back up on it and go for it or not. but i'm not sure i can resue the brake pad anyway... read on... also, after looking at the pad they wore unevenly. the inside pad is more used up than the outside. also, they wore unevenly on each pad itself. that is, the outside pad has more pad left on it than at the bottom than the top. the inside pad has more pad left on the top than the bottom. in fact at the bottom of the inside of the pad is getting really really close to the screw part that holds the pad down at the bottom. which sucks cause if you look at the pad from the outside it looked ok because the top (which has more pad on the inside and teh outside pad generally has more pad on it overall). i wonder if this could be related to my steering problem and the fact that it seems my toe in/out or caster camber appears off. maybe they would diagnose the problem when the steering gets looked at?

as for the steering problem i suffer from memory steer. that is, i turn right and the wheel stays right until i jerk hard to the left a 1/4 turn or so. same thing happens vise versa. not sure if this matters or not.

guess i have another trip to advance tomorrow for new front brake pads.

 

You are getting uneven pad wear because the caliper is not sliding in the frame that holds it. The slides need to be cleaned of rust and crud, and a high temp grease or never seize needs to be smeared on these surfaces so the caliper can slide back and forth. Don't use too much grease, just a thin coat.

If you notice, the piston is only on one side of the caliper. So how does the brake pad on the other side hit the rotor? When the pad on the piston side hits the rotor, then the caliper starts sliding over till the other pad hits the rotor.

 

i guess that makes sense. thanks. it'll be interesting to see what the passenger side looks like tomorrow when i change the pads.

 

There's 2 main causes for uneven pad wear. Sticking sliders, and sticking pistons. These calipers are reasonably cheap, so I'd advise replacing both at the same time. Particularly if the old calipers have the plastic piston. Upgrading to the steel piston isn't much more than the cost of remans with the plastic piston. Well worth the extra few dollars, in my opinion.

 

deleted........................................... ..

 

OK so i finally have the truck back together and working. 1 issue though.... before i redid the brakes (new brake lines, calipers, front pads, and master cylinder) I noticed the pedal had to be pressed pretty far near the floor to stop the truck. it felt firm and got the job done, just traveled further than it should and compared to other f-150's around the same year i'd driven before. it doesn't and never actually bottoms out to the floor but gets a lot closer than what i'm used too.

fast forward to today and everythings back together and i have the same problem. brakes don't feel mushy. after bleeding the brakes with the mityvac and pumping them afterwards to build pressure back up to the front wheels which firmed the pedal up some it seems i'm right back to where i started and have a pedal that travels to far but gets the job done. before i put the new MC in i bench bled it and checked the distance of the piston in relation to the brake booster pushrod of the original MC and it matched up really close to the remanufactured i bought from autozone so i left it alone. anyone have any opinions on what i should do now? should i try to bleed the brakes again? could popping off the MC and adjusting the brake booster pushrod so more of it sits inside the MC shorten the distance of the pedal?

P.S. i should have mentioned that one of the PO replaced the brake booster at some point. no idea when but it's not original. in fact it still has one of those tags saying the warranty is void if you remove the tag.

 

The pushrod could be out of adjustment.
The rear shoes are more likely out of adjustment, though.

 

I concur it sounds like the rear drums need to be adjusted.

 

i thought the rear drums were self adjusting though?

 

50% of the time the adjusters don't work, and the other 50% of the time they work too good and they keep locking the brakes up. A quick test is to pull the emergency brake about halfway, and then try the brakes. If the pedal is higher, then you do need to adjust them.

 

The self adjusting mechanisms on these brakes sucks. You have to adjust them manually. Jack the wheel off the ground and spin it around. Keep adjusting the brakes out until they lightly rub all the way around the drum.

 

i'll try that stuff out tonight. here's a link to autozone. they have brake drum self adjusting kits for $10/wheel. Perhaps this would be a wise investment and another pair of shoes depending how the shoes that are in there look?

AutoZone.com | | Brake Drum Self-Adjusting Kit-Rear | DRUM SELF ADJ KIT

 

That kit isn't a shortcut to help you adjust brakes, it's a replacement hardware kit for the self-adjusting mechanism that's in there now. You don't need that unless the hardware you have is broken. From the sounds of it you haven't even taken the drums off yet so do that first before you decide on replacing anything.

 

I totally agree with andym. There may not be anything wrong inside the drum, other than a minor adjustment needed. It doesn't take much misadjustment back there, to really make a pedal feel low.

 

If the drums haven't been off, I would pull them for inspection, could be frozen or broken parts inside.

Auto brake adjusters only adjust when applying the brakes going backwards ... To use the auto adjusters to adjust your brakes, back up and keep hitting your brakes, if all works well they tighten up.

-Enjoy
fh : )_~