Good old Bill

My truck is a 02 F150 4.2L Auto trans. 168K miles. A couple weeks back, I went to my weekend/retirement home. Every thing normal. Start up engine Sunday to go back to Vegas and while backing up the brake pedal felt different. No CEL or ABS lites on. Brakes felt soft but stop with a little more pedal pressure. Thinking master cylinder, bought new, bench bled with a bleeding kit that I have used for years. Installed and again bled at all calipers. Same feeling, first 1" or so of pedal movement seems soft but brakes work fine after that initial pedal movement. Slow parking lot speeds are really annoying. Freeway speeds, stops fine. Question is, shouldn't the ABS lite tell me if something is wrong in that system? Another question, is the brake booster going out and how do I test that? I'm a firm beleiver in, IF IT AIN'T BROKE DONT FIX IT. This is puzzling to me. Any ideas will be appreciated.

jacobs4x4

The ABS light is only going to tell you if one wheel is going faster or slower than the others. So it would only come on if it were skidding.

KAH

Bill:

Is this truck equipped with disk brakes all around ? Or does it have disk brakes on front wheels only.

I had a similar experience with a Ford minivan. In this case, only the rear brakes had to be adjusted.

Ken H.

Good old Bill

Thanks KAH for the reply. Yes, its 4-wheel discs. I'm ordereing a brake booster today to install this weekend. It seems like the early morning temps, 60 degrees at 4AM, brakes feel near normal. Go home at 2PM, 90 degrees and it feels funny. Its only money, I'll keep you posted.

Good old Bill

Put on the brake booster over the weekend, brakes seem to be alot better. There have been posts about the rubber hoses leading to the calipers and to the rear end colapsing. This does worry me. Am watching this. Thanks Guys.