I have a question. I have a 98 F150, bought it in Sept of this year. When I bought it, I took it to a Ford mechanic to go over it and make sure that would run for a while without me having to worry about it. They replaced the rear brake shoes as they were worn, which made sense. The brakes always felt 'softer' than the Miata I was used to driving, but then about 2 weeks ago they felt really soft. I took it back, and when they looked, they said that the right rear shoes were completely chewed up, and the hardware was boogered up as well. Seems my parking brake had been sticking (which was funny, I never use the PB). Anyway, they replaced that, I had them check the lines, etc., and it STILL feels soft. I get about 1-1.5" travel in the pedal before it begins to stop hard (I can feel the brakes kind of grabbing, but not like I'm used to). There isn't any sponginess in the brakes once they begin to stop, but it still feels wrong. When I mentioned it to the mechanic, he said that the brakes were fine, that it does travel, that rear drums don't act the same as caliper brakes, etc. He even said this was normal for the truck.

So my question: is this normal? If not, what do I need to do? The brakes have been bled, etc. Are your brakes 'hard' (not much travel), or does it travel a ways before it begins to stop?

Sorry for the length, but I wanted to give as much info as possible. Any help greatly appreciated...

 

Whenever I do brake jobs, and they are spongy, there is air in the line. Have they worked on the fronts at all?

This might sound funny, but I had a 97 and had to replace a caliper in the front, well, the auto part store gave me a caliper for the passenger side, when I needed one for the drivers side. Long story short, the bleeder valve was in the wrong position and no matter what I did, I couln't get the brakes to be less spongy, because the bleeder valve in the caliper is in the wrong position alowing air to stay in no matter how many times that you bleed.