Still have broken brakes - need advice!

From: TerribleTom (SilverEightynine@aol.com)
Date: Sat Apr 23 2005 - 00:54:00 EDT


After tonight I'm seriously starting to feel disgusted with this truck.
  I think I'm going to change its name from Christine to The Kobayashi
Maru... No matter what I seem to do, its hopeless.

Installed master cylinder and power brake booster, as a preassembled
unit. That is how it came from the company. I bled it out according to
the instructions. I was going to do it with the two bleeder hoses but
decided the company knew what they were talking about so I tried it with
just the solid plugs. Seemed to work, but the plugs leaked. MAJOR PAIN
IN THE ASS to get to the brake booster nuts under the dash! Anyway...
installed that, went ahead and installed all new hardware for the rear
drums. All I reused were the shoes and drums. Everything else is new,
rear wheel cylinders, springs, self adjusters. Greased all the contact
points. Only thing I can think of is I didn't bleed the lines out in a
"farthest to the closest to the master cyl" method. I didn't remember
to do that until I had both the front already bled out. So I figured -
oh well what the hell may as well just finish the others. I went
through an entire jug of DOT3 - I know I got all the air outta the
lines. No bubbles came out anymore.

Incidentally, I asked my mother to assist me, and operate the brake
peddle while I handled the bleeder screws, and I would tell her to push
on the peddle and no brake fluid came out?

After 5-6 times, I stopped and said I gotta figure this out... something
had to be wrong - 10 seconds later I hear "Tom? - um - I was pressing
the gas peddle... sorry!" It was a good 5 minutes before I stopped
laughing LOL

Anyway - I get everything bolted back up and take it out for a test
drive - and low and behold the brake peddle goes down to the floor and
is soft as a sponge. WTF did I do wrong>?! Could the improper bleeding
sequence be why? Did I not bleed the master cyl out properly? I
figured that since the master cyl was drawing fluid from the reservoir,
and air no longer came out of the lines - that the master cyl was bled
out completely? Is it possible there is still air in the master cyl?

I still have the ugly grinding sound coming from the front end, and the
engine seemed to want to die constantly - again.

Anyone mind if I bring a rusty POS 1987 Ranger 4x4 to the DML BBQ? LOL

(sighhhhh)

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