abecedarian

spare tire?

HAVOC

It's possible the master has air in it (or it's bad). Try to bench bleed it first. Here is a write up (Honda, but same concept):
http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/maste...hbleeding.html

The only hoses I've seen that hook to a spare tire are to make it easier to check the air pressure if the tire is under the vehicle/hard to get to. You connect the hose to the valve stem and put the other end in an easy to reach location.

foot0069

NO those are pressue bleeders you'r thinking of. They pressurize the resovoir with a clamp on lid and admit pressurized air to force the fluid through. What i'm talking about uses a hand pump you squeeze to create a vacuum. The pump hooks to a little catch bottle then from there to the bleeder. You draw a vacuum and crack the bleeder then it pulls the fluid/ air through the lines. The pressure style are really nice but last time I looked cost quite a bit more. I have also used my vacuum rig to prime the oil burner on our old boiler when we would run out of heating oil. Boy I sure dont miss that old beast. 1000 gallon tank buried in the yard and never could afford to put in more than 300 or 400 dollars at a time and that never lasted more than a month and a half and its been gone for 2 years now.
Jim

foot0069

The MC bleed I recomended will achieve the same thing as bench bleeding without taking tke mc back off the truck.
Jim

JDMSLIK

ya first time I saw one I was scratching my head too.

abecedarian

Well, if bleeding your brakes requires the spare tire... then I think they should put the spare in a more accessible place so that you can throw it in front of you when you need to make a panic stop!

HAVOC

OH, sorry.
I have/use a vacuum bleeder at work when we do brake flushes. Works awesome. I never seen the one that uses the spare.

CJM

Yea, sounds like you got air in the MC. I would bench bleed it or use the rag method someone mentioned.

In the future, this is VERY important when working on brakes. ALWAYS do ONE side at a TIME, ALWAYS. You basically made your life difficult b/c you introduced ALOT of air into the system.

I would bleed the MC, then redo the entire system. Working from the furtherest bleeder (usually pass rear) to the front wheel by wheel. In this case: pass rear, driver rear, pass front, driver front. Oh and if your truck has one, there is a little valve under the bed above the rear axle called the load sensing proportioning valve, bleed that last.

If you still have an odd pedal, check the rear drums and shoes for being out of round and replace if needed.

jawxx

Ok everyone. Almost there!

SO! I did the bleeding method where you leave the master cylinder on the truck. Got some rags/dishes under the MC and removed the two brake lines coming out.

I did this twice. Both times I thought I was done but no success once I got to the front brakes,,, I thought it must be because I'm not getting all the air out of the MC.

So I put the tires back on, got it off the jack stands and jacked up the rear end in an effort to make the MC more level, thus more able to remove the air. I bled the MC again. To make the MC even MORE level I loosened all the bolts holding it on the truck until I could press the end of and actually level out the MC. I had my assistant slowly press the brake pedal to the floor, then plugged the holes with my thumbs and then had my assistant release. I did this many times until there was solid flows out of both holes. I tightened the bolts back down and repeated this a few more times. I put the lines back in the MC.

Once this was finished I bled the front brakes and once I had solid fluid I considered myself done. I even did rear brakes first this time, and made sure to go in the correct order for all the brakes. Furthest to closest.

I have brakes now. But not until I'm almost to the floor... What do you this is most likely related to?

Thanks guys for ALL the help. Seriously, lots of thanks. I think I'll still pick up one of the vacuum things, sounds worth its price after 1 or 2 uses.

MMA_Alex

yeah i just got a vacuum brake bleeder and its worth every penny. i think it was $34 at sears. Its awesome not having to ask someone to help you bleed the brakes

jawxx

So do you think I might still have air in my lines? Or might it be likely the plunger that pushes into the MC might have moved when I had the MC loosened up?