HelpIAmAParrot
New Member
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2017
- Messages
- 9
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 1
- Vehicle Year
- 1992
- Make / Model
- Ford
- Transmission
- Automatic
Hi everyone- newbie here hoping for some advice. So I recently got my granddad’s 92 Ranger. When I got it the brakes worked, but the pedal was pretty spongy feeling and would often sink to the floor at stoplights. Thinking there was air in the lines, I bled the brakes (my first time) using the one-person method I saw on a few YouTube channels.
Now here’s the thing- when I first went to pump the pedal during the bleed (car off), the pedal didn’t travel very far and wasn’t pumping any fluid that I could see when I went to check every few pumps. So I pushed it harder and felt it kind of push past a “wall” and sink to the floor, and from there it would push fluid through the lines. So I bleed all 4 in order, then go to start the car only to find that when the car is off the pedal is reasonably firm but when on it goes straight to the floor and only gets a little bite at the very end.
I looked at a few things online thinking it was the vacuum booster but most sources say the pedal should be too hard, not too soft, if the booster diaphragm ruptured. So what’s the deal? Did I bleed them wrong and somehow get MORE air into the lines? I was religious about checking the reservoir level when doing so.
Now here’s the thing- when I first went to pump the pedal during the bleed (car off), the pedal didn’t travel very far and wasn’t pumping any fluid that I could see when I went to check every few pumps. So I pushed it harder and felt it kind of push past a “wall” and sink to the floor, and from there it would push fluid through the lines. So I bleed all 4 in order, then go to start the car only to find that when the car is off the pedal is reasonably firm but when on it goes straight to the floor and only gets a little bite at the very end.
I looked at a few things online thinking it was the vacuum booster but most sources say the pedal should be too hard, not too soft, if the booster diaphragm ruptured. So what’s the deal? Did I bleed them wrong and somehow get MORE air into the lines? I was religious about checking the reservoir level when doing so.