Zorin
Active Member
- Joined
- October 31, 2017
- Messages
- 93
- Reaction score
- 16
- City, State
- Milton, KS
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 2006 Explorer Eddie Bauer
Hi, everyone! Long time, no real excitement with the Explorer. It's just soldiered on and on for the last 62K miles of my ownership.
So, recently, we had a right front brake caliper freeze up and cause a pull. So, we replaced it, and at the same time, warrantied the brake pads, as that side was thinner than the driver's side. This was in November. It stopped pretty decent, but it's worth noting that this thing has always had a so-so brake pedal. Stops good, feels a little soft.
Last week, the same caliper froze again. (Cheap parts, man!) So, we replaced it, and once again, warrantied the pads. Upon reassembly, it had a pretty piss poor brake pedal. So I bled and bled, and never got the pedal back. It would sink to about 1 inch off the floor. The car now has 177,000 miles on it, and it felt about like a bad master cylinder, so I bought a replacement at AutoZone. (By the way, this is where the pads and calipers are from as well.) It sucked badly, and would not pump up either. Pretty good flow on the primary side (front brakes), not real great on the secondary (rear brakes). So I warrantied it. I installed another. Upon bench bleeding and installing, I found that when you crack the lines loose at the master to bleed, the primary port sprayed nicely, the secondary port just kind of drooled. That told me that we had another bad one, so I ordered a Motorcraft master cylinder from the dealer. Installing that, we found the HCU was completely full of air from two bad master cylinders. After multiple ABS service bleeds, and 3 bottles of brake fluid, we have enough brakes to drive it (we are getting fluid to the back brakes now, but it still has quite a bit of air) but predictably, the pedal is still somewhat unpleasant. One thing we find interesting, when you crack the rear bleed screw, the HCU makes a hissing noise as the pressure is let off. Not all the time, but if you crack it open fast, it does hiss.
I'm a pretty well versed mechanic, but my question is are these THAT hard to get all the air out of? I have spent several hours reading the historical threads, and YES, my rear calipers are correctly installed. I'm aware of the brake pedal TSB, but after studying the brake pedal assembly, I just don't see how this is contributing to my problem......that thing is pretty well made!
Looking for any ideas I can try out. I suppose it's possible the caliper is bad, but I am not sure how. Nothing is leaking, at least visibly anyways. I understand this generation of Explorer doesn't have the best reputation for bad ass brake pedal feel, but I just don't remember it being QUITE this bad.
Thanks for any ideas you can throw up, and I'm happy to get it back in the shop, get you pics, and try suggestions!
Tim
So, recently, we had a right front brake caliper freeze up and cause a pull. So, we replaced it, and at the same time, warrantied the brake pads, as that side was thinner than the driver's side. This was in November. It stopped pretty decent, but it's worth noting that this thing has always had a so-so brake pedal. Stops good, feels a little soft.
Last week, the same caliper froze again. (Cheap parts, man!) So, we replaced it, and once again, warrantied the pads. Upon reassembly, it had a pretty piss poor brake pedal. So I bled and bled, and never got the pedal back. It would sink to about 1 inch off the floor. The car now has 177,000 miles on it, and it felt about like a bad master cylinder, so I bought a replacement at AutoZone. (By the way, this is where the pads and calipers are from as well.) It sucked badly, and would not pump up either. Pretty good flow on the primary side (front brakes), not real great on the secondary (rear brakes). So I warrantied it. I installed another. Upon bench bleeding and installing, I found that when you crack the lines loose at the master to bleed, the primary port sprayed nicely, the secondary port just kind of drooled. That told me that we had another bad one, so I ordered a Motorcraft master cylinder from the dealer. Installing that, we found the HCU was completely full of air from two bad master cylinders. After multiple ABS service bleeds, and 3 bottles of brake fluid, we have enough brakes to drive it (we are getting fluid to the back brakes now, but it still has quite a bit of air) but predictably, the pedal is still somewhat unpleasant. One thing we find interesting, when you crack the rear bleed screw, the HCU makes a hissing noise as the pressure is let off. Not all the time, but if you crack it open fast, it does hiss.
I'm a pretty well versed mechanic, but my question is are these THAT hard to get all the air out of? I have spent several hours reading the historical threads, and YES, my rear calipers are correctly installed. I'm aware of the brake pedal TSB, but after studying the brake pedal assembly, I just don't see how this is contributing to my problem......that thing is pretty well made!
Looking for any ideas I can try out. I suppose it's possible the caliper is bad, but I am not sure how. Nothing is leaking, at least visibly anyways. I understand this generation of Explorer doesn't have the best reputation for bad ass brake pedal feel, but I just don't remember it being QUITE this bad.
Thanks for any ideas you can throw up, and I'm happy to get it back in the shop, get you pics, and try suggestions!
Tim