On May 24, 7:20*am, stryped wrote:
I have a brake question. I have a 1996 chevy Silverado. I have had it
for about 4-5 years. I bought it from my dad. It has 315,000 miles on
it. It has always had a soft spongy pedal. Brakes seem to work, but
like I said the pedal sinks when holding it.

This weekend was a nightmare. I replaced one side of my back drum
brakes. I will have to finish the other side this weekend as I ran out
of time. I noticed when I was trying to force on the pads in the back,
I developed some liquid at the master cylinder boot.

This weekend is a long one so I plan on doing this right. Replacing
the other set of rear pads. I guess I need to replace that wheel
cylinder now too. (Will I hurt anything by driving the truck this week
with one set of new pads on one set of old pads?) For the record, the
pads had a lot of life left on them but there were some superficial
cracks so I attempted to replace them.

Also, for the last year my antilock brake light has been on.

Anyway, Part of me is afraid to replace the master cylinder and re
bleed everything. I have heard of people doing this and somehow
getting air on the anti lock module? Have you heard of this?

I appreciate any help and advice! I just want to get this done and be
finished with it. This summer by the way I had to replace my vacuum
booster. It went out. I have no fluid leakage that I can see by the
way.

I appreciate any help!

You've got air, at least, in the works, maybe a bad master cylinder
and I hope you've got the manual. You NEED the manual and maybe some
special tools like a vacuum bleeder to get the air out of the anti-
lock system. My b-in-l has a Silverado, a bigger piece of crap I
never hope to see as far as braking systems are concerned. The days
of shade-tree brake mechanicing without docs are long gone with the
advent of ABS. The b-in-l tried 4-5 times to get things back to the
way they were after replacing pads and shoes, he finally ended up
hauling it in to the dealer. The rear wheels on his had both pads AND
shoes, so had discs and drums both. Guess GM was too dumb to figure
out how to do parking brakes with discs. Major pain in the ass
setting the shoe clearance.

If you replaced the vacuum booster, that usually sits right behind the
master cylinder which has to be removed for access. Probably that's
where you got the air in. Some can be bench bled with fittings and
hoses added, some need vacuum. The manual has the procedures. Just
pumping fluid through a cracked fitting doesn't do it anymore.

Stan