I have a question about equalization between the front and rear brakes...I know the front discs do more braking than the rear drums but how much more? My truck comes to a stop slower than any vehicle I've driven I always thought it was just the torque converter since I don't need to brake on steep hills and I idle up inclines but today it was really icy out and my front end was on pavement and rear on ice. With the tranny in drive and a foot on the brake I could feel the rear rocking, with a head out the door I see the rear wheel idling forward on the ice (not sure about the passengers) I could not get that wheel to stop until I hit a good 80% of the brake pedal down so with moving force forward I would guess it barley does anything at 100% braking power?? When me and my grandfather did all the brakes over I stressed this fact and he did not take much care to it, only showed me to use a bar and ratchet the rear drums tighter (which seems impossible to get even between rear left and rear right) any ideas?

 

My guess is maybe a weak master cylinder or calipers.

I will move this to the 1st generation Dakota sub-forum.

 

Well...I found my answer today in the form of a close encounter. One of the rear brake lines going from the distribution block to the passenger wheel was rotted and probably slowly leaking, it blew out on a hill and I had to romp on the ebrake to keep from rolling down into our 98' Grand Cherokee 5.9L Limited. Kicked a speaker in during the process, I wonder if this caused the rear brakes to be weak lately....maybe I have been low on fluid but locking the brakes up last week for a dog probably helped push it over the edge. Since it's a 1988 I wouldn't have ABS right?

 

that is true, if you had a bad line already and by hitting the brakes real hard to stop quick like that that would put a lot of pressure on that line and blow a possible small leak in it as that had happened to me a few times with the old vehicles.

 

I'm just dumb founded how little controls the brakes, it's about as stupid as nuclear power technology. I'll tell you what, when I build my 4x4 chassis this summer to drop my body on...I'm running either redundant lines or metal lines with rubber over them it's WELL worth the extra $ to me maybe $100 tops.

 

check the wheel cylinders as the pistons inside may be frozen (seized) meaning no rear brake action

 

No they deff work, they stop on a jack and you can't turn them by hand the last time I checked. I replaced the whole line from the distribution block all the way across the rear axle to the passenger wheel but I have not bled the system yet.