FIXED - SORT OF
Primary Lesson Ford does wacky things with their brake line fittings and parts. Don't assume anything, verify every part and fitting in advance. A flexible line comes down to the rear axle and terminates at a block where the lines to the rear wheels attach. One of them is 3/16", the other is 1/4". So you measure one on one side at 3/16" and go to the auto parts store 25 miles away and get 2 3/16" lines - because obviously Ford would be sensible and keep the line fittings consistetn throughout. Nope. You get home and find that the other one is 1/4" and that requires another trip to the store. But that isn't the end of it. I replace the cylinders with new MotorCraft cylinders. The old one had 3/16" fittings and standard bolts, and the new ones had 1/4" and metric bolts. The new ones did not come with bolts and the old bolts stripped the threads on the new cylinder! Another couple of trips to town, one to a specialty bolt supplier. So, now that I know Ford's bad habit I can address it in the future, but until you know it sure is frustrating.
So after:
-two new cylinders
-new shoes and brake hardware
-cleaning and greasing the places where the shoe contact the backplate
-replacing 2 emergency cables
-verifying the master cylinder was good, by plugging the ports and applying brake pedal for 1 minute, and observing no pedal travel
-bleeding the system
The result:
The brake pedal does engage much higher up off the floor. It used to be that when I braked on a wet road the back right wheel would lock up at 10 MPH. Now that wheel locks up at 30 MPH. So I guess I took 2 steps forward and 1 step back. I will try some more adjustments on the rear brakes.
BigRedWeather
