Brake failure after master cilinder replacement

[fabians0]

Good morning everyone. I'm the owner of a Ford Explorer 2008, 4.0L V6 XLT since about a year. I live on an island in the carribean and unfortunally getting parts here is a pain. However I get them from the US and ship them out here when I need to.

I did just that with my master cilinder. The brakes where squishy and I regularly got an ABS alarm. I bled the system with no results so I figured I'd start with the master cilinder. The real problems started after replacing it. I bench bled the cilinder and then went ahead and bled the brakes. Set my wife in the drivers seat and let her pump the brakes a couple of times and hold it. Then all of a sudden the was no more pressure. A leak in the hydraulic hose from the ABS to the front left brake caliper. This is a hard steel(?) hydraulic line with a small part braided at the beginning. The leak occured at the braided part. Seeing as it was the shortst line I figured I'd order it and ship it out. Within a week I had it at home and replaced it on the car. Again bleeding the system and slowly building up more pressure. Then start the car, hold the brakes and again I lose pressure, another hyraulic line in exactly the same spot! This is however one of the rear ones and apart from getting it in and out of the car, shipping it here will be a fortune so I'm looking for solutions...

I have a couple of things I don't understand here and hope someone can help me. First of all why are they failing now? Is there any possibility I somehow have a higher pressure in the system that causes the failing? Or has replacing the master cilinder anything to do with it? Does anyone know why the braided part is at the beginning? Seems like a weak spot in the system.

Then of course the question of what to do next. I'm looking in to the possibility of replacing the end part of the hydraulic line, so cut of the line and add a thread coupling and let a company make a brake hose here. Is that something that's possible? I would do the remaining 3 all at once seeing what happened to these.

Any suggestions are welcome! Many thanks in advance!

 

[Rick]

Is this a rusty vehicle? I know Florida has a ton of humidity and salt spray if you live near the ocean. It could be that the new M/C found the next weak spots in the system.

 

[fabians0]

Yeah definitely not great climate conditions for cars here, possibly worse that Florida. Now looking into cutting the 3 remaining braided parts out, flaring the line and replacing the last part

 

[Gary Crist]

Someone might have clamped the hoses closed with vice-grips
thus crushing the inner braid.
I would not trust any rubber lines left.

 

[eaglet3]

soft brake could be air in the ABS they usually cant be bled without operating the ABS solenoids, most if not all low end OBD scanners dont read ABS codes. Forscan may let you operate the ABS to bled, be prepared as the cure may be involved. I have seen a ford that the ford dealer didnt bled the ABS properly.