Cannot find a solution to poorly performing rear brakes

The symptoms:

Brake pedal is spongy. Depresses a little more than I'd like, but not down to the floor.

E-brake is incapable of stopping the truck, even at a 2 MPH roll on flat ground.

I can still get all four tires to lock up when I slam on the brakes; granted this is on icy roads.

What I've done:

Replaced rear brake shoes

Adjusted rear brake shoes, multiple times. Set them as tight as I can get them and I still have a spongy pedal and ineffective e-brake.

Replaced front brake pads

Bled brakes

Master cylinder is relatively new (less than 30k on it)

Any ideas?

 

Do we have a cable adjustment?

 

As for spongy feel..... stainless steel braided lines shoukd help some.

 

Rear disk conversion?

 

Worse stopping from most the info i gathered on here about that swap

 

Already done a long time ago.

 

If the ebrake can't stop the truck at 2 mph and you have a spongey pedal I doubt it's air in the system or expansion in the hoses. The shoes sound like they are out of adjustment. Adjust again!

 

this seems to be a common issue with 2nd GEN trucks, mine does the same and ive read all the threads and fixs and it still has a soft/spongey brake pedal. Im thinking its something inherent in the design that causes this,only thing you can do to give the pedal an adequate feel is to make sure the rears are adjusted, bleed the brakes,replace or clean caliper pins,resurface the rotors and call it a day. I took mine back to the dealer where I bought it(used)49k miles after replacing pads,bleeding,adjusting and told them to test drive it, the technician said he has the same truck and it does the same and that's just how they are.

 

I do believe @Jimmyh has some know on rear brake adjustment.

 

2nd gens are notorious for having a "soft" brake pedal, even when the brakes work normally. If you spend any time driving a full size truck, our brake pedal can be downright annoying - except that the brakes will still perform just fine. I think that's a separate issue from your parking brake. The cable adjust for the parking brake is under the center console.

 

also if the rear brakes are adjusted correctly the parking brake should have between 7-10 clicks

 

Drove 20 miles today, tried adjusting the rear brakes again. Can't get then any tighter and I still have a low, mushy pedal with a non functional e brake.

I think my step will be to replace the drums and wheel cylinders.

Front Brakes working great, so I doubt it's the MC

 

I know how you feel, I have a 06 that had a firm pedal until sept when I had the frame replaced, now I have the dreaded spongy pedal and have not been able to figure it out yet, as I have to rely on friends who have garage space work on the brakes, after multiple attempts at bleeding, it still has the spongy feel which I will get figured out eventually even if it takes forever cause I don't like the spongy pedal feeling.

 

This is from a different thread, ABS can cause issues with bleeding.

 

spongy brake pedal, is one of the pistons in the calipers frozen ? How are you adjusting the rear brakes , the star wheel ? the rotors and drums in spec? The wheel cylinders leaking?

 

if the wheel cylinders are not leaking they should be fine, why is the e brake non functional?

 

I don't know. My guess at this point is that the shoes aren't mating to the drum well. That's the only thing that I think can explain a non functional e-brake as well as poor pedal feel.

 

Make sure the parking brake cable fitting is not broken where it enters the rear drum backing plate.

 

If adjustment is correct and both sides are actuating I would give them a good burnishing using e brake. May have to adjust after a cool down.