My father has a 2000 Ranger 4.0L 4X4 with approximately 170k miles. For the past few weeks he's noticed that the truck would pull hard to the right when braking. He also noticed that the right front wheel was black with brake dust when the other wheels were clean. Upon initial inspection, the front right pads had worn almost all the way while the left pads still looked almost new (he replaced the pads two years ago). Since most of the brake system has about 170k miles, he decided to do a complete brake over haul including the following parts:

All parts are left AND right side and are NEW, not rebuilt:
Rubber Brake lines
Calipers and Caliper Carriages
Pads
Rotors
DOT 3 Brake fluid (from brand new bottle purchased this week)

After replacing the above parts and flushing the brake fluid, now the brake pedal is very spongy and the truck still pulls hard to the right .

We bled the brakes for about 30 minutes. First I hooked up my vacuum bleeder which sucked out clean fluid with no bubbles. Then we bled the brakes using the normal procedure of pumping the pedal and opening the valve. Also - my father and I have worked on countless brake jobs and never had this problem.

Any suggestions on the spongy brakes or pulling to the right?? Is DOT 3 the wrong fluid? What else can we replace to make it stop pulling to the right??? We're leaving Saturday for a trip to Maryland (from CT) so this is kind of urgent. THANKS!!!

 

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Did you check the master for a leak?
Inpect the rear brakes.
I guarantee the front right or what ever side is shot is frozen.
Dot 3 is the correct fluid.

I have seen the spongy pedal and its usually a frozen piston or wheel cyl

 

You think the brand new right caliper is frozen? I know its not since I saw it move in and out while bleeding the brakes.

One thing I didn't do was bleed the back brakes. Should I have bled those even though I only worked on the front brakes???

 

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Yea bleed all. And **** happens those pads are shot for a reason. It's frozen. Sure it moveed while bleeding them but now that it has some mileage on it anything can happen. Check that calipur just do it

 

Ok ill check everything and bleed the whole system. Thanks.

 

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Where in CT are you. I'm always near CT.

 

I'm in the Colchester/Salem area.

 

only a hour from me.

 

crack the bleeder open iand see if the caliper moves.

 

With new calipers and rotors on both sides I'm betting there is a problem in your master cylinder.
And definitely bleed all 4 whenever you have lines open, you could have air in the system. That would explain the spongy feeling.

 

Thanks for all your help. We bled all 4 yesterday and still have a spongy pedal. However the truck doesn't pull to the right when braking any more. The first thing we did was vacuum bleed at all 4 wheels and then we did the manual pedal-pump procedure. After repeated failed attempts to fix the sponginess, we decided to drop it off at our local shop. I'm thinking air is stuck somewhere in the ABS system somewhere but I would have thought my vacuum bleeder would have pulled it out.

 

Vacuum bleeders suck. I had a spongy pedal in mine and it was the master leaking. i also did everything in the rear along with e brake cables. New rotors pad and calipers and it was all better. it was the expensive route but it worked