Soft/Mushy/Inconsistent Brake Fix?

[Plinky]

Hi Chris,

Agree to a point. Vehicle does stop well, but braking confidence is not there. 5G had to meet the FMVSS requirements and it does this but not with confidence. Sort of like when you fart with confidence there is no squirt, eh? The 2011 were properly sized for the vehicle. We had best in class braking and brake confidence. I know who signed off on the current 5G and he is a technically inept person who is only interested in his next promotion. While it is my opinion he should be in charge of corporate Janitor supplies only, he is unfortunately still there.

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

Preaching to the choir here. Been a tech in the dealer world for over 30 years (General Motors). One thing the business is never in short supply of is useless suits out for themselves.

I owned a '97 & a '06 Ranger...never felt an issue with braking, although the '06 had something up with the rears not staying adjusted as well as the '97. Both had the same setup, but the '06 had a different set of shoes (riveted on one side, bonded on the other). Went through 3-4 sets of front pads before I traded it in. Went about 93k on the '97 before I changed the front pads, & that was because work was slow & had nothing to do (still had about 40-45% pad left). Never touched the rear shoes, just cleaned & adjusted.

Had a Focus ST before the 5G...thought I was gonna flip the car over it stopped so well in a panic situation.

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[2Xero21]

Here’s a link to a video I made on a way to fix this issue.

 

[Msfitoy]

Are some Rangers not getting properly bled during assembly? Happy my brake is firm and normal...

 

[CompDude]

Wow this works great.. Hope it lasts over the long haul.. But if I have to do it a couple times a year no big deal.

 

[LagoCJ]

I have to say that I was very worried about the mushy brakes when I got my Tremor last week. The Forscan reset seems to have helped somewhat, after scaring the FARTS out of me as the ABS cycled and then threw 50 DTCs (I blame Phil for the fart theme). ABS Reset cleared everything and the brakes seem a bit better.

The weird thing to me is the significant difference between the brake performance on the Ranger and the Bronco. I know the Bronco is the new (Ranger6G) platform, but its braking feel is SO much better.

Time to try Phil's brake bedding technique and then swap Ranger parts for Bronco parts

 

[Steven D Tipton]

I want to start off by saying your 100 percent right on the issue. I have 2 2019 Rangers. Also own repair shop. One had perfect brakes and other didn't. Sent to Ford. They did the Abs bleed. They also didn't actually do full bleed. How do I know. They parked out in yard and when I started to leave, hit brakes and abs module started running for a second. Another thing, it did fix for a short time. Problem is air in abs module but running abs and pushing air into system with out removing the air will result in return of same problems. When you run only abs pump your breaking up the air into system into zillion little bubble's, which will finally meet back up into one large bubble. Creating the same issues. You said everything right here and ? right but permanent fix. you have to get air out of the system period.

Here’s a link to a video I made on a way to fix this issue.

 

[Fitzmotor]

I think the master is to small, that's why a caliper that requires less fluid works well, it's a pressure over volume issue, I have worked on many racecars where you reduce the master bore size to get higher pressures at the calipers, but you get longer travel, if you go to small you run out of travel, a large bore master has short travel but lower pressure at the calipers.
The Ranger feels like it has too much travel before meeting the required caliper pressures for braking.
I would like to try a master that was 1/16th" larger bore, then maybe a 1/8th" but that may not be enough pressure, it reaches a point of diminishing return, pedal feel improves but braking is diminished, we would run through many iterations of master sizes until the driver was happy, some wanted a short travel hard pedal (big bore) some wanted long travel soft pedal (smaller bore) to the point where the whole safe travel is used up and if the pads got real thin the pedal got scary low, but on a non-power system smaller bores prevail most of the time.

 

[Steven D Tipton]

You point is very realistic.
I guess sense I have two Rangers it was easy to put 2 and 2 together. My issue has been solid for months. Again dealer only kicked on abs module and dispered the air and left in lines. I completely removed all air. Problem solved in my case. What dealer did lasted about 3 weeks and slowly return. If you bleed the system. Use bottle with 1/4 brake fluid in it. Clear plastic tubing from bleeder to other end submerged in fluid. Pump until you get to 3/4 bottle and repeat each wheel. Of course this is after abs bleed preform with forscan.

I WANT TO ADD (YES IN CAPS) THIS SYSTEM IS NOT REGULAR DOT 4 FLUID. IT'S DOT 4 LV. DON'T USE REGULAR DOT 4.

I think the master is to small, that's why a caliper that requires less fluid works well, it's a pressure over volume issue, I have worked on many racecars where you reduce the master bore size to get higher pressures at the calipers, but you get longer travel, if you go to small you run out of travel, a large bore master has short travel but lower pressure at the calipers.
The Ranger feels like it has too much travel before meeting the required caliper pressures for braking.
I would like to try a master that was 1/16th" larger bore, then maybe a 1/8th" but that may not be enough pressure, it reaches a point of diminishing return, pedal feel improves but braking is diminished, we would run through many iterations of master sizes until the driver was happy, some wanted a short travel hard pedal (big bore) some wanted long travel soft pedal (smaller bore) to the point where the whole safe travel is used up and if the pads got real thin the pedal got scary low, but on a non-power system smaller bores prevail most of the time.

 

[landiscarrier]

You point is very realistic.
I guess sense I have two Rangers it was easy to put 2 and 2 together. My issue has been solid for months. Again dealer only kicked on abs module and dispered the air and left in lines. I completely removed all air. Problem solved in my case. What dealer did lasted about 3 weeks and slowly return. If you bleed the system. Use bottle with 1/4 brake fluid in it. Clear plastic tubing from bleeder to other end submerged in fluid. Pump until you get to 3/4 bottle and repeat each wheel. Of course this is after abs bleed preform with forscan.

Can’t you just gravity bleed all the brakes? Open the bleeder and let it drip for awhile? Or would that be more of a pain in the ads and not solve the issue?

 

[Steven D Tipton]

I know a lot of people that bleed brakes that way but to me I've never been that impressed with that procedure. The bottle the way I explain has been the best for me for years. Please no room for questions. One thing is 100% sure is you cannot believe the ABS without bleeding air the rest the way out of the system. It solves nothing. I'm not trying to be a know it all period. Just stating facts. Moving air around system doesn't remove air.

Can’t you just gravity bleed all the brakes? Open the bleeder and let it drip for awhile? Or would that be more of a pain in the ads and not solve the issue?

 

[t4thfavor]

52000 miles and the brakes still have 3" of travel before they start to grab, and they are mushy past that. I tried the ABS bleed from the video and it didn't do anything different. I'll have to properly bleed them and see if it goes away after that, but they are by far the worst brakes I've had in a vehicle of any era...

 

[Steven D Tipton]

52000 miles and the brakes still have 3" of travel before they start to grab, and they are mushy past that. I tried the ABS bleed from the video and it didn't do anything different. I'll have to properly bleed them and see if it goes away after that, but they are by far the worst brakes I've had in a vehicle of any era...

Bleed the way I explained and you will be happy. Good luck, use correct brake fluid.

 

[t4thfavor]

Bleed the way I explained and you will be happy. Good luck, use correct brake fluid.

Yeah, that’s what I mean by “proper”. You’d think ford would have done this one of the 9 times I had the truck in for brake work.

 

[Steven D Tipton]

Yeah, that’s what I mean by “proper”. You’d think ford would have done this one of the 9 times I had the truck in for brake work.

I took mine in, even though I have a repair shop. Played the do only the turn on and off the abs bleed. I knew it would return because of not doing the whole system, So I did wait. Took about a month to get back to shitty. Did it right and never a issues again. My new 22 Ranger is fine. I was surprised.

 

[t4thfavor]

I took mine in, even though I have a repair shop. Played the do only the turn on and off the abs bleed. I knew it would return because of not doing the whole system, So I did wait. Took about a month to get back to shitty. Did it right and never a issues again. My new 22 Ranger is fine. I was surprised.

I’ve had my rear brakes replaced 5 times, my rotors turned twice, and just my pads in the rear replaced at least 3 times due to shitty pedal feel, and warping rotors. I’m certain they could have just fixed it once by bleeding the brakes completely but they just dicked around until my warranty was up.

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