No Brakes....HELP!

GONOVRIT

GONOVRIT

blue collar brotherhood
Joined
Apr 10, 2005
Location
Dallas NC
D44,F9" under a '92 YJ. They will stop the jeep.....eventually, but no where near the point intended. I can smoothly push the pedal to the floor with little resistance.
The jeep is new to me so I don't know all that much about it but I haven't noticed any leaks or such. I gave up trying to fix it and took it to my friends shop. He proceeded to try 3 different new master cylinders-nothing. Bled the brakes every way known to man-nothing. Tried wheelin the jeep for another day to see if some miricale might happen and I still have no pedal.
So, does anyone here have any suggestions before I give up and redo everything? We could even make this a game and see who comes up with what we haven't tried:popcorn:
 
as strange as it seems, the MJ was the EXACT same, and the fix was replacing the rear wheel cylinders, they were rusted solid

can anyone here explain why having frozen wheel cylinders would make it have NO pedal, i would think the opposite

i would just pop off the rubber dust boot on the wheel cylinders and look, mine were obviously rusty, easy fix

adam
 
Been exactly there and done exactly that. I have posted the part #'s and contact stuff on pirate 4x4 under the e350 master cylinder post. But heres all but the break line guys phone #.

I swapped in an E350 master cylinder. You will have to enlarge the mounting wholes and make a metal (or whatever) space between the brake booster pin and the piston in the MC. You will have to get brake lines with proper fittings for the new MC. You can ususally find lines witht he proper fittings to go from the valve to the MC or you can buy the fittings and use a flaring tool.

Next you need to pick up a set of '69 Tbird front calipers. All of these parts except the custom front lines can be had from advanced, napa, or auto zone. I got mine from advanced. The advantage to the T bird calipers is they are single piston and are a greater volume as the dual piston 3/4 and 1 ton calipers. The calipers those mount to the same bracket as is already on the 1/2 ton ford 44. So they will bolt right up....EXCEPT...the brake line. In the Tbird they were made to have a hard line run to them. So you can either get a hard line and run it to the nuckle and then put a fitting on to mate to the soft lines or do what I did and pick up the part # for the fitting for the caliper from Advanced while there, then get one of the custom break line guys from pirate, etc. to make you a set of soft lines with that fitting on one end and the 3/8? jeep fitting on the other. I went ahead and got the new soft lines done so no hard line to worry about and was able to get 12" longer lines than stock.



Breaks are awesome now. I first did the E350 mc swap while doing the axle swap and was badly upset when I got it put together and could NOT get it to stop...well not within a reasonable distance and in 4lo I could not hold it at all. I then swapped in a set of real discs hoping that would do it, but no change at all.....damnit.....all this time hearing that the 3/4 and 1 ton guys were having great success locking up all 4's with the e350 swapped in. So when I heard that the Tbird calipers had the same volume as the 3/4 ton calipers I figured that could work and man it worked great. Now I really should have used the '69 vette MC since its made for rear discs and I have those, but why screw up what works.

Let me know if you have any questions or can't find the post on pirate which has the part #'s and the brake line guy I used.
 
Check for vacuum at the booster, and test the booster for a vacuum leak. Do you have disks or drums on the rear? If disks, you will need like a 'vetter master cylinder that is setup for disk/disk and not disk/drum like stock.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. I'll keep ya updated on what the fix ends up being.
 
Most of you braking is done with your front brakes you could have bad calipers. Or your Self adjusters on the rear may not be working. you rear brake pads need to be close to the drum but not touching. If you self adjuster are not working then your brake shoes will have to travel along way to contact the drum.
My J10 has a d44 and AMC20 so I have about the same set up with 35's my brakes are working fine but they still suck when I have to stop quick.

What size tires are you running????
 
Aggressive1 said:
And Jon, no with the half ton ford axles you don't have to have the vette mc to get it to work. In fact there was no difference felt between the drums in the back and the discs in the back with the E350 installed. I won't say that the vette won't make em better, but mine are pretty damn good now.
Click to expand...

the ford-e MC is not designed for rear disks. Not saying it wont work, but its not right for rear disks.
 
Ditto on Gubni and Nuts.. If your shoes have to move really far before pressing on your drums, that can cause an easy, low pedal.

And though you don't *need* a MC designed for a 4-wheel disc app, it's never a bad idea. Plus, they're cheap. I paid <$25 for the vette MC i used to run.
 
A friend of mine had the same issue with his Jeep. Tried several MC's and no change. What fixed his was taking the front calipers off, putting a 2X4 in between them and bleeding them at a different angle. Seemed he had pockets of air in there that would not bleed out at the angle they were on when on the Jeep.
Another thought would be the proportioning valve. If someone took the check valve out, it may be circulating the fluid out of the MC thru the valve, and back into the MC, taking the path of least resistance.
I have also seen Rigs where someone put too large of a diameter brake lines on it, and there was simply not enough push to build pressure at the wheel.
Hope some of this helps
 
I plan on trying all the simple stuff before I go into swapping MC's. Just for the record the rear has drums. It'll still be tomorrow evening before I get a chance to work on it. Thanks.
 
If you can "slowly push the pedal to the floor with little resistance" you either have air in the system or a leak in the system somewhere and that somewhere could be the MC. I have experienced everything from wheel cylinder leaks like aw said to pin holes in the hard line to MC leaks. Take your time and you can track it down.
 
I figure you have already checked, but make sure the calipers are on the correct side(yes they will fit either way). The bleeder need to be in the up position. If not, you will never get the air out of them.
 
I have the same problem with my D44/9" swap. Its not my lines - worked fine with the D30/D35. Not the hoses - brand new. Not the spacing in the drums- I adjusted for that already. Rear pistion not seized- I hear it moving and catching. But my pedel is still soft. someone said a pocket of air, how do you get it out, or just change the angle?
 
making sure i'm correct here-86 E350 is for disk/front-drums/rear? I'm about to drill out the ears and need to know before I "buy" something I don't need......anyone?
 
Well after going through the posts with my friends we decided to try the swap as that was really the only thing they/we hadn't done. The swap went quick and easy and I was able to get some work done to the coilovers and replace a hub all in about and hr and ahalf(with help).
We bled a fresh bottle of fluid through the brakes and the swap seemed to have made a huge improvement but the brakes are still kinda spongy-not exactly where they need to be. I wouldn't think twice about driving it down the road somewhere now but this jeep only sees pavement as its passing by on the trailer.
I plan on getting it as close to perfect as I can but right now I have a headache and am sick of the smell of brake fluid. Don't think I'll touch the thing untill I wheel it again.
Thanks for all the help and BTW I got the MC for $36 and some change-cheaper than a stock replacement.:beer:
 
Why are they still spongy. That didn't completely fix the problem? My Jeep is still my DD so I need good brakes. Could he have done something wrong or what?
 
Nope, didn't do anything wrong...just didn't listen to me and swap in the tbird calipers. I told you I am running the EXACT same set up and I've already been through this. You can play and tweek all you want to, but until you swap the calipers its gonna be the same. Oh and you think it feels drivable now, try putting it in 4 low on a downward grade and see if the brakes will hold. MINE WILL :D
 
I stated that I'm going to get it as close to perfect as I can, that would include doing whatever needs to be done(calipers....). I had a long day yesterday and it was time to put the tools up for the day. Oh yeah and about the 4lo.....did that,vertical,up,down,wheel stand, blah....it holds. Thanks for the help.
Aggressive1 said:
try putting it in 4 low on a downward grade and see if the brakes will hold. MINE WILL :D
Click to expand...
 
OK Agressive1, what did your axles come from? I don't think they are EXACTLY the same as mine(EB) seeing that those t-bird calipers aren't going to bolt up at all. I'm gonna take a trip on it, bleed them one more time then go for the p-valve;)
 
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