I'm stumped questions....

Lurch830

Lurch830

messin' with sasquatch
Joined
Mar 1, 2007
Location
Wilton & Albemarle, NC
Went with the club to Coal Creek, TN a while back and grenaded my passenger ball joints & u-joint on the '97 nissan crawler in my sig. Had to drag it out of the rocks and onto the trailer (lower ball joint ball/stub was literally dragged). I've since upgraded to chromos thanks to ECGS and replaced the ball joints.

I was supposed to take it the the sale put on by 4wp last Saturday. Went to unload the truck off the trailer and the brake pedal goes to the floor. Background - it was pointed out in TN by a club member that I was leaking brake fluid at the caliper after I broke. Determined it was a leak between the banjo bolt & copper washer, so I topped off the master cylinder, replaced copper washers, tightened the banjo bolt and bled the brakes at the caliper it was leaking from (passenger front). When 'OFF' the brakes felt good like they always do, but when cranked the pedal goes to the floor....I ended up driving the f250 instead. Any clue as to what could be causing this? Brake booster, etc?

I bled the brakes again last night. When the truck is 'OFF', the pedal feels great, but I only get a trickle out of the bleeder screw. When running, the pedal feels horrible, but I get a geyser of brake fluid shooting up to my fender. I'm going to bleed all four corners tonight probably, just don't have high hopes for that fixing the problem.

Also, since coming back from Coal Creek, I noticed my toe is way off....to the tune of 3". The front measures 72.5" and the rear measures 69.5". Any ideas how this would have happened? Could dragging the axle bend it that severely? It doesn't appear bent, but I may be looking at it wrong.

TIA,
Brandon
 
We'll get it fixed tomorrow afternoon. As far as the issues. sounds to me that you could have damaged the flex brake hose on that side since it's only a trickle when not being boosted and when boosted the pressure increase will push it out. i don't know how much fluid you lost but if the res went empty at anytime you've got air in all lines and we'd need to bleed the entire system completely. Where was the brake fluid leaking from when we had the caliper off?

As far as the toe being off. Even as much as that is i think it's simply the difference in you balljoints. I guess it could be possible that the housing was tweaked when we were trying to get you out but you were never 'yanked' and it's very unlikely we put enough force on the axle tube to bend it as light as my buggy is. Your shafts went in fine and seem to still be centered in the outer axle tubes at the knuckles. Check your steering are studs and if all is well with those and they didn't generate the movement then i'd adjust your tie rod and go with it. The knuckle being slightly bend forward or backward wouldn't really cause any real change in the steering setup because the ball joint axes stays relatively in line with where it orginally was, i.e. the distance between the balljoint axis of rotation on one knuckle from the other will remain relatively unchanged unless it's a very noticable severe bend. The movement that really generates a steering geometry change is if the distance between the ball joint axis of rotation on one side to the other side either got shorter or longer relative to the tie-rod length, that's what affects the toe.
 
plus if the axle would have been tweaked from dragging it the passenger side knuckle would have be forced rearward, which in my opinion would have caused it to be 'toe-in' because it would have forces the tie rod holes in the steering arms outward and the unchanged tie-rod length would have forced the toe to come in...which is opposite of your measurements.
 
Try driving the truck down the drive/street and pump the breaks to stop. If the pedal holds after you finally stopped it is a loose brake part. If the pedal still falls, its hydro.
 
Got the toe back in with a handful of turns of the tie rod, so I think it was the new ball joints throwing it off.

Bled the brakes using a quart of fluid and they're stopping the truck much better. However, they don't seem to stop like I remember (mind could be playing tricks on me), but they never fully locked down the tires (fyi - I'm planning on going to a 1-ton master cylinder in the winter). Noticed what looks like a possible weep hole in the MC. It bubbles out a little fluid when the brakes are pumped, but its low pressure so you can stop it with your finger. Anybody know what it is exactly? Its the circled hole in the picture:

d21 MC.JPG
 
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