Hello All: On my way to work Thursday morning I hit a deer. It was a doe that just jumped in front of the truck from the bushes. I hit the brakes as hard as I could but it clipped the driver side corner and sustain some damage. The truck is still drivable. The accident damage the left fender; grille; grille mount; and plastic cover on the radiator and condenser. I got all the parts from local salvage yard and gave the fender to local body shop to match the paint. I was lucky there is no frame damage or anything serious. Total cost so far is under $600. i am doing all the assembly.

I although am not happy with my brakes. The brakes are lousy on this truck. I would like some input on the brakes. I would like better/bigger rotors; pads; stainless steel braided brake lines.

Please advise.
Thanks in advance
MSK

 

Is your truck lifted or have bigger tires?....ive got 37's with 10" wide wheels on my 97 reg cab and she stops pretty good....I installed wearever brake pads and rotors in the front and wearever shoes in the rear....gets the job done...

 

The truck is 1997 F-150 4x2 XL. It is completely stock. Only few mods to the engine but nothing else right now. I will check into Wearever pads.

 

I am really happy with the Centric ceramic pads and rotors on mine.

 

Yea, just change the brake lines. The Ford factory rubber lines are terrible and break down from the inside out. They're restricting for one, then if you need to stop right now, the lines blow up like a balloon vs stopping the vehicle. With new lines, (braided are best, -specially Russels.Your vehicle requires 3 lines) your truck will stop on a dime, - better than new.

 

Thanks everyone. I looked at the Russel lines and is on my list to purchase. I should have asked about it before but was waiting on weather to get better before working on the truck.

 

I may be lookin into those lines as well...

 

Mayb try unhooking ur abs once? When mine is unhooked i can lock up my 35's. With abs on an hooked up its still good just not impressive

 

Yeah, I changed everything but the lines at one time. - Brembo Rotors, lifetime Carquest Blues (pads), Cardon steel piston calipers, new master cylinder, etc.. It helped, but after doing some research, I finally changed the lines. It was like a night and day difference. Stopped on a dime. -Real touchy at first, will put you thru the windshield touchy lol. But that may have been because I upgraded every thing else in the system as well. It'll stop all right, like it should and then some.

EDIT:

BTW- I did all this back in 08. - I've only put on about 60,000 miles since then, but the brakes are still top notch, even pad wear, still stops like new. Ford really cheaped out with the 1/2 ton brake systems.

 

Jbrew thanks. I used them on my motorcycle and the stopping power improves quite a bit, but i have not used them on any car or truck before. I am confidence that they will improve the stopping power significantly. I will take this opportunity to replace the rotors, pack or replace the bearings and pads as well.

Deer taught me a lesson not to put things off LOL. Funny thing is last week I sold my car because I was not using it at all and the only reason for keeping the car was for days like these. Now I have no car/truck but a motorcycle and tomorrow, the highs are going to be only in 40s. My work is only 70 miles one way!!!!

 

Yea, I needed to solve the braking problems since I pulled a car hauler with the F150 for many years at the time.

Here's a pic of the front once completed. -



At first I went with standard replacement hoses. Later I went with Russels. Didn't notice a difference in regular braking situations. New hoses alone made the major difference. I went with Russels later as a precautionary. The thought behind that was,- if I needed to hit the skidders hard while loaded, going with braided lines would eliminate line flex under that much pressure. I've had to get on them fairly hard, never slamming or locking them up,YET! But hard and she stops very quick!

The Brembo's are a lot heavier and thicker than the OEM's and they're fair priced. - Just a little more than the OEM's from what I recall. Thing is, after 60k, they still look brand new. Yea I really like the brake system NOW. Wish Ford would done a little more with this system back then. There's been a lot of problems posted with the same issues over the last 10 years or so.

The rear drums fair well. In 99, Ford went to rear disc's for a four wheel disc system. But I'll tell yuh, the rear drums work great too and they'll keep working that way if you incorporate a little anti seize and a silicone sealer on the mechanicals. I soak the hardware in a pan of oil. It helps a lot with bare metal components (anti corrosion inhibitor).

The rear drums, looks like this pic was taken before the silicone sealer, unless I forgot it ? -



BTW, Carquest Blues are very , -Blue in the rear lol. They use to paint their front pads Blue as well, but quit doing that for some reason. I have over 300,000 miles on this truck and bring the pads and drums in when they're about half gone. Carquest swaps them out for me free, no questions asked. I believe they're made by Raybestos. Good quiet ceramics w/copper.

 

Thanks for the pictures. Very clean, especially the rear brakes. When I bought mine, the ebrake was seized and it took a while to get it working. I did inspected the rear and found it to be rusty. So I will be replacing all that as well after I finish the front brakes. Does Brembo makes parts for rear brakes as well?

I just ordered the Rotors and Russell lines from AutoAnything.com. With 15% off and free shipping, I think I got a fair deal. Powerstop Rotors were on sale as a kit but he knocked off another 5%. Brakelines were 15% off so overall a good deal for $340.00 shipped.



Once I finish putting it back, the brake parts will be here hopefully by next weekend so I can tackle the brakes as well.

 

I believe the Brembo's were $125 set, -for both rotors back then, but that's all I recall as far as price. I don't remember where I got the Brembo's, but everything else came from Rock Auto. Back then, they had the best prices. Not sure how it is now.

As far as Brembo and the rear brakes, -I'm not sure. I would think they have hardware kits at least. I should have went with a new hardware kit the last time, but I didn't. I replaced both wheel cylinders tho and wire wheeled the existing hardware over at the bench.

The parking brake system I gutted after awhile. Seems like it didn't matter what I did, going thru one winter of salty roads would begin to corrode that cable so bad, it would hang up. Ticked me off, I couldn't prevent that from occurring with Fords cable design. So I eliminated the system and components all together. Truck was a good 30 or 40 lbs lighter after that lol. But yea, I couldn't get that to work right for long and I hardly every used it, which may have contributed to the problem. Impossible to keep THAT cable lubricated without removing it and I didn't want that to interfere with rear drums function. The rears are only suppose to assist with braking. All the power is at the front calipers. I didn't want a half stuck PB cable interfering with the assist operation and got fed-up with Fords fubared cable design. Maybe you'll have better luck with it.

 

I am used to manual drives and using hand brake is normal for me, whether it is parked on a hill or straight road. I use it and once every summer I lubricate it as much as I can. I thought about replacing it but it is very difficult to get behind the left panel to get to one end of it. It seems like you have to take out the whole dash to get to it. very poor design IMO. Then half of the cable is covered and the other half is bare. You sold me on the Carquest Blues. WE have that store here in Topeka and I will call them Monday to see if they can get me the brake shoes.

I plan on replacing the shoes and hardware. The drums seems to be fine. Rock Auto prices are still better and they give you alot of choices. I went with Auto anything as Free shipping and 15% discount, you cannot beat that.

 

Yea, the most critical thing is replacing those lines, the rubbers, so all that can work as it should.

I have a long history with Carqest pads. Every one of my vehicles have had them as long as I can remember. Mainly because they don't dust up the rims, -I'm sure we all have seen what bad pads do to the front rims. Factory pads are the worst! They are quiet and just work well.

I looked up the Carquest line of today. Things have changed, - for the better I expect. Carquest has an edition to their line and sell Police brakes (so named) lol.

Check it out, scroll down a bit, you can't miss them, -

http://www.carquest.com/webapp/wcs/s...nt=brakes.html

I use the Ceramics at top left. Also, I don't think the Blues are offered anymore. What they have is either the same as or superior to what they use to sell.

I'm not sure you can do much better than what they offer. You only pay once for a quality pad per vehicle and then your set on pads for as long as you own the vehicle.

There's most likely pads out there on the market that are just as good. Not sure, I've always been happy with these.