Hello All,

I own a 2010 Ford Ranger Sport Sport, V6 4x4. In August, I decided to take a day or two to bleed, empty, drain most fluids from the truck and start anew. Engine oil, coolant, and brake fluids...

While making an attempt to flush my brake lines, I found that on all four brake calipers, the little nozzle that is covered by the rubber piece were completely rusted, so I couldn't simply drain the lines from them. To flush and combat the rust, I decided to remove the front two disc calipers, remove the little cylinders from the inside, and scrape as much rust from them as I could, then attempted to paint the caliper red afterwards, then put the little cylinders back in, and reinstalled the calipers.

After reinstallation, I put more brake fluid in the reservoir, and cranked her up. The brakes were very soft while driving and wouldn't actually engage until I pressed all the way to the floor, and even then, they weren't as strong. The brakes would only stay pressurized when I was stationary and pumped them up 3-4 times consecutively. If I waited a few seconds, the brakes would lose pressure and I would have to pump them again to regain pressure. Over the course of the next month or so, I drove a total of 10-20 miles and used my brakes sparingly. Same problems. When I saved the money to see a mechanic, he told me to buy a new Master Brake Cylinder due to the wear the previous one had taken on.

He installed the new one, bled the lines, and the same problem except the brakes never collected pressure, even if I was stopped.

Any insight? If you have specifc questions, I can happily go into more detail. Just seeing if this is an easy fix that we have overlooked or if it will take more intervention than previously thought.

 

Welcome to the forum

Why did the mechanic give you back the vehicle without fixing the issue?
That seems odd to me

Soft brakes usually means air in the system somewhere
Brake fluid doesn't compress much, air does, if you pump brake pedal and brakes feel better that means you have compressed the air in the system as much as possible so brakes feel firm
But after a few minutes the air uncompresses and pedal is soft again
The air can be anywhere in the system, just in one line, and same results because its a hydraulic system so applies equal pressure thru out the system, so air any where requires equal pressure and absorbs pressure from other lines

2010 Ranger will have 4 Wheel ABS(4WABS) brakes, and air can get trapped in that module in the engine bay, need a 4WABS electronic tool to bleed these, it opens the ABS valves to allow fluid to flow in and air to flow OUT