Brake pedal pulse
 

2001.5 2500 4x4 250K miles.
Lately I'm having an intermittent problem. when applying brakes i sometimes get a little kick or pulse out of the brake pedal. Almost feels like the anti locks are working. Brakes work fine, no codes. I have seen the abs light come on a couple times but it goes out and doesn't seem to correspond with the pedal pulse. Brake and PS fluids are good and fairly fresh. Seems like an odd one to me and scratching my head.

At first I was think low on power steering fluid, but you say it is full....I would try un plugging the Anti lock brake connection at the axle next and see if that changes anything.

I have had an experience with my 1997, with a pulsing brake pedal when the parking brake cables had seized, and the rear drums were partially engaged and dragging all the time.

Is your parking brake working fine?

Cheers,
Sean.

Thanks for the replies. Parking brake is fully functional.
I'll give disconnecting the abs a shot. If that cures it, then what?

You may be losing the bearings in a front hub, or maybe have a loose hub bearing in the rear, either one causing the ABS sensor to get triggered when the loose hub closes up the clearance to the sensor. I had a phantom ABS light soon before a full-on front hub failure at a boat ramp, fortunately at low speed. Tow truck home for a new hub and ABS sensor. The sensor had come into contact with the hub internals.

Jack it up and check for play in the wheels/hubs.

I then sold the non-factory-offset wheels that came with the truck and I've had no front hub problems since. I got a set of Centerlines. Nice wheels.

That makes good sense. I'll check it tomorrow. right side is original, left side new Timken about 10K ago.

I've seen recent threads on another forum about pedal pulsing due to rear drums that went out-of-round or cracked due to heat and what one would guess is either insufficient mass (to absorb the heat) or poor metal. Do you have disk or drum on the rear? If drums, consider checking them closely for problems there.