I'm prepping for a long distance tow with my F350 and I found that the lower caliper slider was effectively seized on both front calipers. This resulted in some uneven wear between the inner and outer pads but it wasn't bad. I cleaned up the sliders and reassembled everything. Now my brake pedal feels spongy. I can still activate the ABS and it doesn't sink to the floor. I didn't disconnect any brake lines and there are no leaks. Am I just feeling the difference between having the pistons only work on the inner pad and now there's more movement? Thoughts?
Did you lube the sliders with Anti-seize?
You had to have pushed the caliper pistons back the there bores so you may have to bleed them a bit now that there back against the pads. My 2010 F350 has allways had a lower spongeer feel then i'd like. The one we test drove had a nice firm pedal but the one we got never has and they tell me its normal... I just did a caliper and full flush over 1.5 gallons to get clear at all the calipers and its still not the firmest pedal. It stops straight and can lock / anti lock works. 95% its just normal but bleed them a bit to be sure.
For whatever reason, my Ram would always have a low/soft pedal for the first 15 or so miles after a brake service. Gradually would get better with a few good long stops
I did push the pistons back a bit to reassemble the calipers. It took some pumping to get the pedal back up. I'll do some bleeding tonight just to be on the safe side.
I also misspelled pedal in the title. I r enginear
now that your slides are working properly, some of your spongy pedal is (probably) because now you can feel the tapered wear of the pads. also, if your slides were that berkeleyed, it's possible that your caliper bores may also be in need of some love.
93gsxturbo said:
For whatever reason, my Ram would always have a low/soft pedal for the first 15 or so miles after a brake service. Gradually would get better with a few good long stops
After changing the pads and/or rotors, It is absolutely critical to properly bed the pads to the rotors by doing a number of hard braking events without coming to a full stop and then driving gently until the rotors cool back down.
I'm not sure why this gets overlooked by so many in the car care community but I CONSTANTLY run into customer complaints from people who just hopped un and started driving down the road only to complain about sponginess, noise and vibration until the pads get hot enough on their own.
This advice might help the OP as well, but otherwise I agree with the general sentiment that you should try doing a brake bleed. This is good general maintenance that is supposed to happen about once a year anyway, similar to flushing a radiator, but a lot of us neglect that regularly.
If you didn't replace the tapered pads, they will be pushing the pistons too far back, and you have to fight that.
