I've been having problems with the brakes on my truck. Specifically, I am having very poor braking: long stopping distance (200 yard 60 to zero length), poor pedal feel, etc. I thought that the front pads were worn so I replaced them with a set of wearever semi-metallics from Advanced Auto. This hasn't helped my problem. I noticed that my passenger side rubber line at the caliper was rubbed by the tire because the one mounting bracket on the line was bent. I am planning on replacing this line but wonder if that is actually the cause of the problem of if maybe the master cylinder is bad, or something else is wrong.

I bled the brakes and am not getting any air but it does feel like there could be air in the system. The Haynes manual says to bleed the brakes with the engine off, but when I tried that, the pedal is so firm that I can't get any fluid out of the bleeder(s); so we did it with the engine running.

I already have the NAPA one ton rear cylinders and good shoes on the rear. Also I've seen conflicting reports on the stock rubber brake lines vs. the braided steel lines. Currently I have all stock rubber brake lines. Any thoughts or suggestions for this problem would be greatly appreciated.

 

Engine running will the brake pedal creep down when you hold it?
Could also be a vacuum leak that isn't allowing you full assist.

 

When the engine is running the brake pedal seems a little soft, but it doesn't creep down that I'm aware of. Unless you mean when the bleeder is open?

I had the vacuum pump rebuilt about 2 months ago using the fixinrams kit and it seems to work fine, however I am getting a little PS noise when the truck is cold. Maybe I'll try bleeding the system again, but I hate to since there was no evidence of air when we did it the first time. And I'd hate to admit defeat and take it to a shop for repair.

 

Make sure that your rear shoes are in adjustment. I have had mine get out of adjustment and thought that I was never going to get the truck to stop.

 

The stainless lines will firm up your pedal some,but will not shorten stopping distances.

 

Why are you using chevy wheel cyl in the rear and did the problem start after you installed them? Also when you install new pads on non machined rotors the stopping sucks until the pad wears in.

 

The chevy cylinders are an upgrade because of a bigger diameter. Excellent and cheap mod by the way

Infidel, my pedal will slowly creep to the floor if I have pressure on it with the engine running. What would that indicate? My brakes are pretty decent, but it this is a sign of something yet to come I'd like to take care of it.

 

As long as there are no external leaks the pedal creeping down indicates an internal master cylinder leak. Quite common if you push the pedal all the way to floor while bleeding brakes. Rust on the normally unused portion of the cylinder can tear up the seals when the pedal is fully depressed.

Robert makes a good point about the rear shoes being out of adjustment, Dodges are notorious for the self adjusters not working.

 

yeah mine did the same thing, I had to pump the brakes to even get it to stop at all. I adjusted my rear brakes and it worked great, should probably adjust them every oil change or more often.

 

Correct me if I am wrong. I thought with the vacuum assist brakes, if you stood on the pedal at idle, the vacuum pump could not keep up the vacuum, and the pedal would slowly go to the floor. The reason I thought this to be true is that I read it on another post. My pedal will go to the floor at idle, other than that everything seems to work fine. If I am wrong, I must have a small tear in the master cylinder seal.

 

Losing vacuum assist at idle requires you apply and release the brakes several times, if you don't let up on the pedal the pump will keep up.
When you lose vacuum assist the pedal becomes hard to push but will not creep down.

 

I do mine every oil change(3k miles), and sometimes more depending on the driving....

I can usually tell I need to adjust them when I park on a hill, set the parking brake and it either feels real lose, or starts to roll a tad....

 

I was having the same problems with my brakes. ended up being bad boots around the pistons in the front calipers. got new calipers and all is good.

 

I guess from the sounds of it, I have a leak in my master cylinder, bummer. The brakes work fine, it is just that the pedal will slowly go to the floor if I keep hard pressure on it at a stop sign. Any testing I can do to make sure? Thanks.

 

Baja, if the pedal creeps down and no fluid is showing up externally it has to be bad master cylinder seals.
With external leaks the fluid level will drop, with a master leak not.