jack

Hi,

I have a '99 F350 dually V10 long bed SuperDuty 4x4 with antilock
disc brakes on all wheels that I bought used about 3 years ago. The
tires have about 5,000 miles on them and are Goodyear like the originals.


First, some history:
Before I bought the truck I took it to a Ford dealer to have it
checked out. Cost me about $65 but well worth the money. The Ford
dealer told me the left front rotor needed replacing as well as some
other non related issues not related to brakes.

I replaced both front rotors. The rear rotors don't look too bad but
there is some pitting. I bought severe duty pads from NAPA
and installed them in front and back.

Last year after my wife had driven the truck she told me she
thought something was wrong with the brakes. We are fortunate
she got home with it. When I tried the brakes the pedal went
to the floor. The metal brake line running to the rear brakes
was rusted and split, gushing brake fluid. The reservoir was
very low. I was surprised that this would happen, since the truck
was only about 4 years old. I bought replacement brake line and
repaired it, then bled the brakes at each wheel according to the
manual. Is there any other place there might be some air mixed
in with the brake fluid besides the lines to the wheels and the
wheel brake cylinders that I forgot about?


The Question:
In all the time I have owned the truck, I have never felt like
the brakes worked as well as they should. This includes before
and after replacing the broken metal rear brake line.

I don't expect the truck to stop like a small car, but since I
have never owned a truck like this before, I don't know if the
brakes are ok. The biggest vehicle I owned before the truck was
a 2 door 95'Ford Explorer with ABS that stopped very quickly.

Braking Examples:
I thought there might be a problem with the ABS, but if it is
raining and I panic brake, the pedal modulates as expected and
brings the truck to a smooth stop.

On a dry level road, if I panic brake, the truck stops smoothly
and fairly well, but the ABS never activates, and the tires never
screech or lockup. Shouldn't the tires screech a little or the
ABS activate some when I do this?.

Does anyone have a benchmark for panic braking? For example,
traveling at 25 mph on a level, dry road, and panic braking. How
many feet should the truck stop in? If I had this information, I
could run my own test.

The brake pedal requires a fair amount of pressure. To check the
vacuum brake booster I pumped the brake pedal a few times with
the engine off, and when the engine was started the pedal did drop
some. The service manual says this means the booster is working.
Could the booster be weak or leaky or something?

Am I overlooking something? Thanks for reading my rambling post.
I know there are some experts out there and I hope you can give
me some guidance.


Thanks,


Jack

PS If you care to send email, please remove the xyz from my
email address.

matt macchiarolo

If memory serves there is a specific method of bleeding the brakes with ABS,
you might have air in the ac***ulator.

spdloader

Yep there's a specific way to do it, Wagner brakes puts out a pretty good
description of it, most parts places that sell Wagner should be able to hook
you up with it.
I don't recall the procedure well enough to advise you on it.

Spdloader

doctor john

When I looked this up in my manual, it just says to bled RR, RF, LR, LF in
that order - I couldn't find any other tricks to bleeding. I'm having
similar problems, same truck model and year, so if anyone else has ideas
they would sure be appreciated. Thanks

John

dave

Sign up at thedieselstop.com and ask in there. There are some pretty
knowledgeable people around if you have a coupla days to wait for an answer. Dave.

spdloader

Did you check on the Wagner brakes guide?

Spdloader

johanb

Make sure there isn't any air left in the master cylinder

As you can see the lines are lower then the highest point so all the air
wont bleed out once it's in there

You might have to remove the master cylinder, bench bleed it while tilting
it over a bit and re-install it

If you have the famous cruise control de-activation switch on the front of
the master, try to remove it and bleed the front brake portion thru there