88 F-150 Brake question

MIKEGREENE

MEMBER
1988 ALL OTHER MAKES ALL OTHER MODELS

Hi, I have a 1988 F-150 4X4.
I've gone thru the brakes and find that no matter how much I bleed the brakes I cant get the fading/spongie pedal to tighten up.
I've blead them the good ol school way several times and with a vacuum bleeder. Finially I bought a set of Speed Bleeders http://www.speedbleeder.com/
(These are really awesome)

I suspected that there was a problem with the proportioning valve but this truck doesnt have one. I did find that it has an ABS control valve on the frame, could this valve be mallfunctioning?

Thanks for the help

5 Replies

BRUCE HUNT

MECHANIC
3,754 POSTS

Have you considered that your master cylinder could be failing?

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Thursday, January 11th, 2007 AT 2:59 PM

MIKEGREENE

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4 POSTS

I have replaced it, then and after about 1 month decided that I got a bad one (suspected that it was bypassing internaly) and swapped it for another one.
The problem never got better.

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Thursday, January 11th, 2007 AT 4:12 PM

MIKEGREENE

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4 POSTS

Bruce, you haven't forgotten me have you?
My manual doesn't cover the ABS module under the truck on the inside of the frame. This is the only thing I haven't tried to date.

Any info will shurely be appreciated.

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Friday, January 12th, 2007 AT 2:33 PM

HEAVYDUTY

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60 POSTS

Make sure your rear brakes are in adjustment

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Sunday, January 14th, 2007 AT 8:52 PM

MIKEGREENE

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4 POSTS

Ok it will be a couple of days before I get another day off to work on it.
I does have self adjusting brakes and I did repl the hardware, but I'll check that anyway