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PLEASE HELP MY XJ......NO BRAKES

XJJeepin85

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Lebanon, PA
Ive been searching for days and nobody seems to have any solutions that i haven't already tried, I'm hoping someone can help me. So here's the deal..... I was driving along one day everything working fine then all of a sudden my rf brake started sticking, and after a few minutes started smoking. I pulled over and had it towed the rest of the way home. My first thought was a sticking caliper so I replaced both of them. Still no brakes, so my next step was a master cylinder. I put that on and what do ya know it was bad when i got it. I got another and put that in that one was good, as far as i know, but still no brakes. I just replaced the brake booster and still nothing. Now here's the part that confused me, I bench bled the master cylinder properly, and bled all the brakes many of times. They are all bleeding fine and all the fluid is clear. I still have NO BRAKES.....what do I try next??

When the jeep is off I can get pressure, but as soon as its started there is nothing at all, also it seems that the rear drums are working when the brake is pressed, but the front calipers barely move, if at all. Im going insane and also broke trying to figure this out.....any help would be great. Thanx
 
Ok.

Crawl under XJ, look at front calipers--are the bleed screws pointing up, or are they pointing down?

If they are pointing down, that means you have them on the wrong sides of the vehicle and there is no way you will get the air out of the system and you will have no brakes in the front.

Post up what you find.

PS--Welcome to NAXJA!
 
Didn't put the calipers on the wrong sides, did you? Bleeder screw goes up.

Great minds think alike--scary, ain't it?
 
Yeah, with brake work it is best to dismantle and re-assemble one side at time, that way you always have a mirror image to refer back to.

I'm 58 and still do it that way.
 
I can't honestly say that I'VE never done that...but only once!!

I also swapped the inside pad with the other outside pad so, we all make mistakes, live and learn.
 
Another thing to look at (I know you already fixed it) - make sure your hoses are in good shape. Sometimes a flap will come loose from the inside of the hose and act as a 1-way valve so the brakes will stick a lot but bleed fine.

Hoses are cheap and the thing I hate most about brake work is bleeding the brakes afterwards, so I usually replace hoses when I do other work near them (i.e. replace them if they are a couple years old and I'm replacing a caliper, etc.)
 
Oh i learned alright haha, it cost me about 300 dollars to figure this out.....but oh well now my brakes work like new. I did actually do 1 side at a time but that didnt help, I just didn't realize they could go on either way. I did replace the hoses when i put my 3" lift on it, i actually did the TJ front lines for a little longer travel, too.
 
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