Thanks for the help!
Thread Starter
Junior Member
Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 2
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From: Baldwin, GA
Thanks for the help!
I have benefited a great deal from this forum in the last three days. I have an 88 Bronco, 351 w, 4x4, auto tat I bought recently and of course i am having problems. It's 22 yrs old and maintenance had been neglected. But, overall I believe it is a solid truck.
My brakes failed and I searched this forum for help. I found a post that said that if I suspected the M/C which I did, that I should also check the slave cyclinders in the rear. I would not have done that. One of them was weeping. I replaced both slaves and the M/C and bled all the old fluid out at all four wheels. I would not have thought that the order of bleeding was important. I learned here that you should start at the furtherest point from the M/C and work around to the closest.
I also read on here that it's a good idea to disconnect the neg cable from the battery before doing any work. I was working on th ebrakes only but I decided that this was good advice and did it anyway. Turns out I am glad i did. You see, I pinched a wire when i put the transfer case prtection plate back on! Coulda been very smoky indeed.
Then lastly, I noticed that the engine had suddenly stopped running smoothly since just before the brakes failed. I had also had some backfires happening under load. I read on the forum a checklist of things to look for. I had already done a tuneup including plug wires, plugs, dist cap and rotor button and i could tell a big dif in the way the motor ran afterwards. That tuneup helped it a lot. So since I had just done that two weeks ago I didnt suspect any of those parts though i did check to make sure the plug wires werent getting burned by the exhaust manifold.
I then suspected either a vacuum leak, a fuel regulator or the coil followed by injector issues, etc. I decided to look for vacuum leaks first since that was cheap and easy! I found a vacuum hose from the fuel evaporation cannister had fallen onto the exhaust manifold and had been cooked almost through. After cutting out the burned part I started the engine and it was back to it's old smooth self. It sounded great - smooth as silk even though she has 140k miles.
I wish i had written down who posted the things that helped me. But since I didn't, I say thanks to the forum for some great advice.
My brakes failed and I searched this forum for help. I found a post that said that if I suspected the M/C which I did, that I should also check the slave cyclinders in the rear. I would not have done that. One of them was weeping. I replaced both slaves and the M/C and bled all the old fluid out at all four wheels. I would not have thought that the order of bleeding was important. I learned here that you should start at the furtherest point from the M/C and work around to the closest.
I also read on here that it's a good idea to disconnect the neg cable from the battery before doing any work. I was working on th ebrakes only but I decided that this was good advice and did it anyway. Turns out I am glad i did. You see, I pinched a wire when i put the transfer case prtection plate back on! Coulda been very smoky indeed.
Then lastly, I noticed that the engine had suddenly stopped running smoothly since just before the brakes failed. I had also had some backfires happening under load. I read on the forum a checklist of things to look for. I had already done a tuneup including plug wires, plugs, dist cap and rotor button and i could tell a big dif in the way the motor ran afterwards. That tuneup helped it a lot. So since I had just done that two weeks ago I didnt suspect any of those parts though i did check to make sure the plug wires werent getting burned by the exhaust manifold.
I then suspected either a vacuum leak, a fuel regulator or the coil followed by injector issues, etc. I decided to look for vacuum leaks first since that was cheap and easy! I found a vacuum hose from the fuel evaporation cannister had fallen onto the exhaust manifold and had been cooked almost through. After cutting out the burned part I started the engine and it was back to it's old smooth self. It sounded great - smooth as silk even though she has 140k miles.
I wish i had written down who posted the things that helped me. But since I didn't, I say thanks to the forum for some great advice.
Last edited by CDT2010; Sep 27, 2010 at 07:23 PM.