Repair-It

They suck. The fronts seem like they are beyond ready.

Ordering this list from Rockauto:

WAGNER BD125390E Rotor & Hub; Black E-Coat on non-braking surface to prevent rust and corrosion; Custom Vane Design - Provides improved heat dissipation resulting in superior performance
$107.58 for 2 rotors

RAYBESTOS ATD369M {#BD369M, SSD369} Advanced Technology; Metallic
$39.99

Timken bearings, 2 x inner, 2 x outer
$22.10

Timken inner seals
$2.48 for both

Total, shipped, after 5%: $193.51.

This will give me brand new front brakes (pads, rotors, even studs) and wheel bearings. If it still sucks, I'll look at the rear which probably also needs attention. Front more important and clearly in need anyway.

The entire time I owned my Ranger, from 2008 to 2017. I don't think it ever needed rotors and I can't find any records of doing pads, either. I did do rear drums. And probably a brake hose. Brake lines.

Just did the ole front brake job on the Dodge Ram on Christmas Eve routine. Pics and write-up coming soon.

Always a good idea to catalog your parts before starting. Mine were spread between 3 boxes. I dug out an old point and shoot camera (found it in a drawer), charged the battery and away we went. Ian did a good half of these which was nice because I didn't have to ruin the camera with greasy hands. Camera is a Fuji F40fd that I got around 2008. I was happy that it seemed just as responsive as I remembered it. Wheel off. Wait until you see how bad the inner pad was. There was nothing left!!! Just the backing plate. In a minute I'll explain why. This is the biggest pad/rotor/caliper inspection window I've ever seen. Here I am struggling to compress the piston back in. It was fighting me big time. I'm thinking...am I going to need a caliper? Oh, I forgot to mention. I decided to crack the bleeder so when compressing the piston, the old, crappy fluid in the caliper gets dumped out instead of pushing it back up to the master reservoir. In 16 years of working on brakes I've never done this before, though it always seemed like a good idea. Happily, I was able to free the bleeder with the help of PB, and some careful working back and forth. Once I got it out I tried compressing the piston and it compressed perfectly easily. It turns out the caliper was really stuck in the knuckle. I don't really like the design. It just slides, cast iron on cast iron. There was zero lube on there. No wonder the inner pad was totally spanked. Check out that inner pad! The outer actually still had some life left. I used my Crescent wrench for the wheel bearing nut. Similar setup as the Caprice. There is a slight difference in the way the cotter pin retains the nut. In the Caprice, it is a castle nut. In this truck, it is a regular nut, with a stamped castle piece that fits on top, and the cotter pin retains the castle piece. I like this as you can spin the castle piece around until you get the holes lined up just right, without having to touch the nut itself. It turns out this nut was just hand tight anyway. Don't forget to wire wheel all contact points before greasing them (knuckle and caliper). Somewhere around this point Jamie had to leave and I was completely blocking her bay. So she took the STS. It went just fine though Ian had to show her how the pushbutton start/stop worked.

This part is exactly the same as a B-body. Just clean off the spindle, including the inner wheel seal surface. The rest is also just like a B-body. Pack bearings, grease spindle, grease hub, insert on spindle, grease more. Set nut, install cotter pin, install dust cap. Another beauty shot of that inner pad. The slide pins are also different (the bolts actually take the same 3/8" allen socket as my Caprice). But I lubed them up and all the other contact points. Unlike a B-body, the outer pad is positively retained with that spring, so no pad rattle here. Now that is some good meat. It almost looks like the inner rotor cheek is thicker than the outer. Maybe it is. Also, these are definitely thicker than Caprice rotors. They seem heavier, too. I mean this is a truck.

Onto the other side. Not totally spent here. The outer especially has plenty of life on it. The inner not as much. I was better able to compress the piston but still required removal to finish. This caliper was NOT as bound up on the knuckle.

I kind of didn't take as many pics since it is the same as the other side. For the nut, I did finger tight and just a whisker with the wrench. Lots of grease on the caliper slide points. Gooey. Pads in, caliper on. Almost done now. Next I decided to suck as much of the old brake fluid out of the master as I could and then pour in some fresh brake fluid. I decided to bleed a little with my Mity Vac at each caliper. That actually worked just fine. Then top off the master again. Done. Total time: Like 4-1/2 hours, plus tool cleanup time.

Road test results.

Oh my god. It is 100% better. The pedal feel is actually halfway decent. And it actually slows down now. This is amazing. I'd say the back is no emergency with a pedal that feels this good. Fixed. Certified for towing a Lexus.

Drove the truck to Home Depot and then TSC for some stuff while working on the STS. It is such a pleasure to have proper brakes on this now. It feels about as good as the Roadmaster now, which is a world of improvement from where it was before.

Left front caliper is binding on the pads. Symptoms include a hot wheel, brake smell a while after driving, and a pull after things get too hot.

Have a reman caliper ready to do on. Going out to do that, then will bleed the fronts. Hopefully the passenger side bleeder opens up for me. And hopefully the pads/rotor aren't overly glazed. It hasn't seen too many miles like this and the parts are pretty fresh so hoping it will be OK.

Took about an hour. Not too much to say about it. Seems to have fixed the hang so the pads are no longer dragging. The pads and rotor looked fine so I don't think any long term damage happened.

I got the fancy coated A1 Cardone reman with steel pistons. Of course not before dropping it on the driveway and banging it up on the knuckle. I gravity bled which helped flush some fluid through (it wasn't that old though) and get some of the air out. As a result, bleeding didn't take very long. I bled both fronts but could have probably got by with just the caliper I replaced. Also I removed the grease fitting for the lower ball joint, since it has previously not accepted grease. Grease went right through it. I also stuck a screwdriver into the ball joint and didn't feel anything. I put it all back together and grease went right in. WTF? Whatever, at least I got grease in it. The upper boot was also trashed so I greased it again. The whole front suspension in this truck is pretty rusty.

And speaking of which, look what I found on the passenger side: Yup, the last 3-4" of coil spring broke at the bottom on the passenger side. It doesn't really seem to ride any lower from what I can tell. So I am just going to keep driving it. The thing is it doesn't look like the spring rusted through or something. Seems more like a fatigue type break.

Anyway, fixed. I just have to mail the core back. It is worth $18 which is more than the caliper cost.

I think there is a good chance that this slipped by Tire Pros on my last inspection.

It is pulling to the left again. Not dragging, and not pulling that severely but I can notice it. I think I should have replaced both calipers. Theory is the right (old) caliper is starting to get sticky and the left caliper is working as new and applying as it should, hence the left pull. Going to add this to the parts funnel. Why all the interest in truck maintenance? Well winter is coming and if the STS shits a fuel pump this is pretty much the only thing I can fall back to in salt season. So don't want to end up in situation where I need to daily drive it for a week or two and it turns out it needs all this deferred maintenance. Bad things happen to people all the time that could have been mitigated by better planning up front so I am living by my own advice (or I try to).

Replaced the right caliper. Bled. Seems good now. I could tell it was a caliper issue because the brake pedal was getting pretty tight again.

So...always replace calipers in pairs?