Brake Woes
 

Okay guys, fed up with the ol girl doing it myself without advise. It may be that I'm young, (16), and don't wanna ask people questions because I know it all! But I thought I would let the pros tell me how its done before some "Autozoner" does!
1. To start out with 1980 F-150 4x4 351M 9inch (dont tell, but TTB)
2. Brake light came on, and I just got finished doing the proportional valve on my 2wheel drive, "see sig" and I thought what the heck, it fixed the problem on my other truck, ill just do it to the 4x4.
3. Went to bleed the rear and my shoes are WAY shot, so I went to autozone and got 11 inch shoes. Fought my butt off in 40 degree weather for 2 hours trying to get all the springs on and finally got them on the driver side rear. Went to put the drum on and it was tighter than HE!!. So asked dad, dad said brake cylinder, I bought that today and haven't had the time to put it on their.
4. Thought what the heck, might as well do the front pads. Dad said pull the caliper off and I will get it "ground" down tomorrow when I go to work. Call autozone they say 2 bolts? So I took the back bolt off and the side bolt off of the driver front side, and this thing won't budge? Didn't take the bolt that holds the line on their, but I didnt think that mattered?
5. I rarely get mad at this truck, but now its just pissing me off, I'm trying to get it all done to make a trip to Florida pulling a trailor, then after that trade for a 76 F-250 4x4 Lifted 4 35's. And its like, hell no your not gettin rid of me!
Anything yall say or do will help me out ALOT, and i mean ALOT. So if you brake genouses are out their lend me a hand. A fellow FTE ER needs your help!

Thanks guys,
Taylor

This may help getting the front caliper off.

http://www.autozone.com/az/cds/en_us...rInfoPages.htm

If your Dad is going to take the rotor to get ground down or turned, that's a pretty big job. These rotors just don't pull off on these trucks.

Franklin, how else would I get the caliper rotated?

Sorry guys I meant ROTORS instead of calipers, talked to dad about it and I'm sure i confused everybody, sorry. I need to take my rotors off so i can rotate them


Taylor

The caliper is the thing that holds the brake pads. No problems getting that off if you follow the instructions in the link above.

The rotor is the round thing that the brake pads squeeze. If it's not tore up and is fairly smooth, leave it on there. To get it off you have to start out at the very end and take the 4wd lockout off(the thing with the 4wd knob in it). And then you have to work your way back into it, taking a lot of stuff out. I would wait till you had someone there to help you before you tackled that.

I'll second that.

As far as removing your calipers, get your hammer out (which is even in the Autozone docs ;-)

-ct

You need a special socket to get the rotor off

Okay guys, decided to wait until my older brother had some "open" time in his shop to do the front brakes, but until then.....

My rear drum will not go on, no matter what. My dads dad, now decised, was a mechanic, and a damn good one. So he hung around his shop. He said back in the old days he would adjust them to as far in as you could bring them, throw the drum on and go from their? But then again this was the 50 60's lol

Any help aprecciated

Taylor

Same thing. Push the tops of the shoes together until the wheel cylinder pistons are all way in.

Turn the star adjuster on the bottom until the shoes are as close together as possible. Slide the drum over them and rock it back and forth in a turning motion if you have to.

Re-adjust the star adjuster on the bottom until you can feel a slight drag on the drums.

I do the same except I like to adjust the star wheel after the drum is installed all the way out till I can't turn the drum at all, then turn the star wheel back till there is a slight drag. I have been fooled before by one shoe dragging on the drum, but the other shoe was not all the way out. Adjusting it till it stops or has a lot of drag helps center the whole shoe assembly inside the drum.

If you don't get it right, your brake pedal will be low.

Ok stosh, I did your method with the "star" adjuster. But I couldn't quote yal both, so I chose Franklin. With the star adjuster all the way in how do I "adjust" it without taking the drum off everytime? I have a little bit of drag and I think its close. Also I noticed I didnt have the "parking brake" cross piece that holds the 2 shoes apart? Do I need it? Parking brake is froze anyways, but wondered if it was "support" or anything. Took 2 days for the driver rear side, cause I got fed up and mad, but the passenger side took 15 minutes, it was crazy!
This leads to next problem....

1. Front brakes bleed out PERFECT, strait fluid. Then it comes to the rear. NOTHING, I mean nothing. But I did replace both brake cylinders on the rear just to do it with the prices low. Did this cause it? The "Plungers" arent out yet, still inside at this point. Need to know what to do. Have to piggy back haha, the dodge caravan to the shop tommorow, and dont wanna use brothers chevy! So help is needed guys.

Also I went farthest from master cylinder like this... RIGHT REAR, LEFT REAR, RIGHT FRONT, LEFT FRONT. Correct?

Thanks stosh, franklin, others..

Taylor

Ok to adjust the rear brakes with the drum on, look at the back and bottom of the brakes, you'll find one or two slots that may have a rubber plug in them, if so take the plug out, you can then turn the starwheel with a screwdriver to adjudt the shoes.

The bleeding, did you replace the proportioning valve? If not that may still be a problem. The proportioning valve has a sliding piston in it that will shut off the fluid flow to either the front or the rear if the pressure differance between the two is to high. This is to stop all the fluid from leaking out if a line were to break so you would still have two working breaks. When the piston blocks flow to one side it trips a switch and turns on the brake warning light. So is the light still on?

I do a lot of brake jobs myself and bought a My-T-Vac (hand held vacuum pump) to bleed brakes alone.

It pulls the fluid from the master cylinder and works great.

Also, years ago I invested in a complete brake tool set with special pliers for the springs, spoons for the star adjusters and flare wrenches for the lines. One of the best investments I ever made.

BTW: you can get the rear shoes pretty close by rocking them back and forth while the drum is off. It helps to center them up. Just adjust them a little at a time until it gets difficult to get the drum on. It'll get you real close.

Make sure your drums aren't worn and they don't have a little lip on them or this won't work and it makes it harder to get them off next time without backing the star adjusters all the way in.

I disagree with this. In my experience if a line ruptures, all the fluid is pumped out of the reservoir that has the problem. Has anybody else experienced this? If a line blows out in the front, the reservoir going to the front will be dry. Same for the rear reservoir.

I have replaced the rear wheel cylinders before, and it's been my experience that it takes a lot of time and fluid to fill the rear system back up. In fact, there is not enough fluid in the reservoir of the master cylinder to completely fill the rear before it runs out, so be careful and refill it during the bleeding process.

I got this idea from somewhere, and it seems to really cut down on the bleeding time. It's called "gravity bleeding". Just take and open the bleeders up in the rear, and make sure the master cylinder is full and just let it sit. It may take 30 minutes, but finally you will see the bleeders start dripping. The driver's side will probably start dripping first, so close it off and wait for the passenger side to drip. After that, when you get someone to help you push the brake pedal, it will usually take only a few tries before all the air is out.

Well that's the way they are suposed to work but they do seize up.

I totaly agree about gravity bleeding. After doing brake work I will generally let it gravity bleed (keeping the master full) until I see clean new fluid coming out and close them one at a time as they each flow clean fluid. After a while of that I rarely have any problems with a final pressure bleed with an assistant and it only takes a few minutes. And yes it can take a while, it's a good time for a beer.:-drink