So I decided to show some love to the elderly (94) Ranger. By all appearances the brake master cylinder was bad (soft pedal would bleed down under steady pressure, had been run low on brake fluid due to blown rear brake cylinders).
I bought a new piece, bench bled it to the best of my abilities, installed it, and bled the crap out of the system (vacuum bleeder).
And after all that it feels exactly the same. Soft pedal, bleeding down, etc. sooo..... help? What do I need to do differently?
Is there possibly a leak somewhere else in the system?
Ford 8.8? Just went through this whole ordeal. Adjust your rear brake shoes and make sure they are out. If not out enough the MC will have to push the pads too far to make contact. Take the rubber grommet off the backs of The drums. Use a screw driver to turn the wheel inside. There's a video on YouTube.
Trackmouse wrote: Ford 8.8? Just went through this whole ordeal. Adjust your rear brake shoes and make sure they are out. If not out enough the MC will have to push the pads too far to make contact. Take the rubber grommet off the backs of The drums. Use a screw driver to turn the wheel inside. There's a video on YouTube.
Do this! Out of adjustment drum brakes will cause your brake system to just not work as intended. Ask me how I know this? I owned a Ranger and I also have a trailer with electric drum brakes. After I finally got around to adjusting the brakes on the trailer it became much easier to slow down and stop with a loaded trailer! Go figure.
Some adjust when you use the parking brake and some when you back up but manually doing it is required when these system either don't or won't work.
Perhaps inspecting the rear brakes before attempting to adjust. Also, out of adjustment brake shoes will not cause bleeding down.
outasite wrote: Perhaps inspecting the rear brakes before attempting to adjust. Also, out of adjustment brake shoes will not cause bleeding down.
Out of adjustment shoes won't cause bleed down, but will cause very long pedal travel by requiring long stroke of the slave cylinder. That said, I agree with the recommendation to inspect the rear brakes. Slave cylinders for drum brakes are cheap, and you may find the adjusters rusted together. Just remember to release your parking brake before you try to remove the drums, and do one side at the time so you have something to look at when you get confused. 
In reply to djsilver: While the rear drums/shoes may be a bit out of adjustment. I replaced the wheel cylinders, shoes, drums, and hardware last year.
Follow up for those who care:
Took it to the shop yesterday. The culprits were a seized left drum adjuster allowing for too long a shoe travel, and the proportioning valve was jammed preventing the air from being bled out of the real lines. It took a pair of skilled and experienced techs about two hours to get it working properly (I don't feel so bad about failing at it then)
It's nice having a good solid brake pedal underfoot (for basically the first time since I've owned the beast).
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