I've lost favor with the motorized vehicle gods, they officially hate me and want to see a 1-ton pinning me to the ground. Here's my story:
Had some miscellaneous problems with a 1989 1-Ton (3500 / 454 TBI auto). Once those problems were resolved, the brakeline coming from the proportioning valve to feed the front brakes rotted out and in my haste I replaced it and ended up stripping out the proportioning valve in the process. Roughly $100 later I had a new proportioning valve in hand and I decided that I was NOT going to replace brakeline after brakeline and decided to simply gut the existing lines and replace them with some of that no-rot copper and nickel line.
Everything was going well until I got to the rear wheels and realized that it was going to be next to impossible for me to replace the lines going to the wheel cylinders because of lack of clearance between the backing plates and the spring packs. I wasn't looking forward to tearing down the rear drums and I found a kit that supposedly would allow me to upgrade to disc brakes in the rear. What a god send! As it turns out, after buying all of the parts and getting well into the install, the kit wouldn't fit my vehicle, despite confirmation from the owner of the company I purchased from. No big deal, I boxed everything up and returned it and purchased components to rebuild the rears, I plumbed it all and went back through and tightened everything up.
Now comes the bleeding
I gravity bled the crap out of the system. Cracked open the furthest bleeder, set the timer on my microwave and watched TV for 30 minutes, closed bleeder and refilled the master and moved to the next. I did this on all 4 wheels, then I did a conventional bleed. Pedal felt OK, not great but OK.
Here's where it gets strange. When I start the rig...there's no pedal to speak of. The idle really stinks until it reaches operating temperature and it goes through this "I'm going to stall" type routine and when the RPM's are down, almost to stall...I get more pedal. When the RPM's are up...basically no pedal. I've rolled up and down the driveway and the brakes appear to be working but they seem REALLY sketchy.
It sounded like the master cylinder was leaking or sucking air or something, so I replaced the gap and gasket and cleaned it. It's certainly sealing but it is making a slight "whisking" noise, I could take a video if that would be helpful. I bled the proportioning valve...about the only thing I haven't replaced in this system are the front calipers, the master cylinder and the ABS deal. I can't help but wonder if maybe I screwed up the routing between the MC and the proportioning valve or ABS...I don't know. I just know that my wife is about 2 weeks from divorcing me because I've had this truck sitting in the driveway for ever. I keep throwing money at it and I'm without answers for fixing it.
Any insight you fine folks can provide would be extremely helpful to me at this point.
-Ken
Had some miscellaneous problems with a 1989 1-Ton (3500 / 454 TBI auto). Once those problems were resolved, the brakeline coming from the proportioning valve to feed the front brakes rotted out and in my haste I replaced it and ended up stripping out the proportioning valve in the process. Roughly $100 later I had a new proportioning valve in hand and I decided that I was NOT going to replace brakeline after brakeline and decided to simply gut the existing lines and replace them with some of that no-rot copper and nickel line.
Everything was going well until I got to the rear wheels and realized that it was going to be next to impossible for me to replace the lines going to the wheel cylinders because of lack of clearance between the backing plates and the spring packs. I wasn't looking forward to tearing down the rear drums and I found a kit that supposedly would allow me to upgrade to disc brakes in the rear. What a god send! As it turns out, after buying all of the parts and getting well into the install, the kit wouldn't fit my vehicle, despite confirmation from the owner of the company I purchased from. No big deal, I boxed everything up and returned it and purchased components to rebuild the rears, I plumbed it all and went back through and tightened everything up.
Now comes the bleeding
I gravity bled the crap out of the system. Cracked open the furthest bleeder, set the timer on my microwave and watched TV for 30 minutes, closed bleeder and refilled the master and moved to the next. I did this on all 4 wheels, then I did a conventional bleed. Pedal felt OK, not great but OK.
Here's where it gets strange. When I start the rig...there's no pedal to speak of. The idle really stinks until it reaches operating temperature and it goes through this "I'm going to stall" type routine and when the RPM's are down, almost to stall...I get more pedal. When the RPM's are up...basically no pedal. I've rolled up and down the driveway and the brakes appear to be working but they seem REALLY sketchy.
It sounded like the master cylinder was leaking or sucking air or something, so I replaced the gap and gasket and cleaned it. It's certainly sealing but it is making a slight "whisking" noise, I could take a video if that would be helpful. I bled the proportioning valve...about the only thing I haven't replaced in this system are the front calipers, the master cylinder and the ABS deal. I can't help but wonder if maybe I screwed up the routing between the MC and the proportioning valve or ABS...I don't know. I just know that my wife is about 2 weeks from divorcing me because I've had this truck sitting in the driveway for ever. I keep throwing money at it and I'm without answers for fixing it.
Any insight you fine folks can provide would be extremely helpful to me at this point.
-Ken
