Brake Bleed Question/Advice

standard vacuum booster.

 

So after some more messing around with the scanner turns out I can activate a bunch of different abs solenoids but still a no go on the auto bleed.

i have no idea what I’m doing with the solenoids so I’m just going to take the truck on a gravel road and do some aggressive braking

 

That sucks man, I appreciate you updating us, hopefully the dirt road will work.

 

Thanks, I'm hoping so too lol. Worst comes to worst another buddy of mine has a shop so I'll take it over to him. I should've just gone there in the first place.

And I found that Foxwell scanner in another thread where the user had a 2015 and I believe he was able to get it to bleed the abs. I'd assume that it should work with newer tacos then

 

OP, did you bleed the master cylinder itself?

 

I did not, I was hoping that the dealer did it when I took it in. Now that you say that I should call and confirm

 

That was the source of almost all my mushiness on mine. You can bleed the MC with the unit mounted on the truck. Then do a regular bleed. If you like I will send the instructions.

My experience is to assume nothing with regard to dealers except......$$$$$.

 

yeah if you can pass them along that would be awesome!

and seriously, that’s literally the first time I’ve ever went in for work at a dealership on all the cars I’ve had. I should’ve known from all the crap reviews to stay away lol. I’m only out 150 bucks so it could have been worse

 

@trdmtb
Background: by not paying attention during a brake fluid flush I let the MC go empty on my '09 and ended up with a very soft brake pedal and excessive travel. Repeated bleeding at the wheels helped not. And I did not have a bi-directional scan tool at the time.

My '09 had VSC but also the same vacuum assistance you shown on your '07. I decided to bleed the MC using the factory procedure for the non-VSC system (attached below), followed by bleeding at each wheel, a few ABS stops on snow and then bleeding at the wheels again. This fully restored the solid brakes. If need be you could do this a couple of times.
04200310(1).pdf

Tip: use a good quality flare nut wrench to initially break loose the fittings at the MC and wheels. This is not the place to cheap out using adjustable wrenches and vice grips.

 

The weekend’s half over. Where’s @trdmtb ?

A couple observations:

From the MC, you know you need to bleed from the furtherest wheel to the closest?

Speed bleeders are awesome.

 

May be a dumb question, but what is the benefit of flare nut wrenches vs combo wrenches, also what size nuts are our bleeder nuts, 10mm?

 

Combo wrenches only get contact on two sides/corners....small fittings, softer type metal + combo wrench open end = better chance of rounding over.

 

@PzTank
OP, PzTank has this correct^^^^ The bleeder fittings are 10mm as well as the flare nuts at the MC.

 

Gotcha, thanks.

 

Hey guys sorry no updates yet, been busy all weekend. If I have time today or tomorrow I’ll give the master cylinder a go.


Edit: I bought a set of husky flare nut wrenches from Home Depot before starting all of this and they’ve worked out really well