Im at a loss here. This may be a long post. So I apologize.

Just bought an 04 Dakota from my father in law.
It was sitting a while so I did a lot of work on it right away.
I brought it home. Did an oil change, coolant flush, spark plugs, air filter, both front calipers.

I bleed the brakes and the pedal goes right to the floor when I start it. theres literally zero brakes. So I put in a new master cylinder. bench bleed, and bleed the calipers again. still nothing.

The brakes worked when I was driving it home. So something I did got them all wonky.

Also, when doing all this work. I noticed that a line of some sort going from the oil filler neck wasnt connected to anything. It went back behind the Intake. I also noticed there was a "nipple" back there that didnt have anything going to it. But everything ran fine. Until AFTER I did this work. It idled bad and high. So I assumed those two things were supposed to be connected. So I ran a hose and connected them. Is this correct? Why would this cause such a change after I did the work, but before hand it didnt cause an issue.

Any help is appreciated. I want to drive this thing!!

 

The vacuum line was needed to operate the power brakes no vacuum line no brakes with this off you will have idling problems because its sucking so much air in were it shouldent.

 

any ideas why i still dont have any brakes?

 

Having the vacuum line off of the brake booster wouldn't cause the pedle to go to the floor, infact it would cause the pedel to be harder. It will cause your engine to run like crap though. Trace all your brake lines and look for any leaks then I would suggest bleeding the whole system again. If you can get your hands on it a vacuum brake bleeder would be your best friend.

 

If you say so good luck? but I think he is describing it wrong if it was off it will feel like its doing nothing bottoming out

Are you losing any brake fluid? If so find the leak

Have you tried bleeding them again now that you connected the line back

Why people feel the need to use fancy expensive bleeders is a mystery to me in 30 years I have never needed but a bootle bleeder cost $2 if that

 

Everything is connected like it should be and there has been no difference. Even after bleeding. I also dont use a fancy bleeder. Just stick a line on the bleed screw and the other end in some fluid, wont draw up any fluid then. you can pump by yourself.

 

All I can say is retrace your steps did you forget some part when you changed the master cylinder or the wrong master there is about three master or more for the 2-nd gen Dakotas depending on your brake size and ABS some are 2wd ABS some all wheel drive the master is different in all of them they also changed in years

Are you getting brake fluid coming out as you bleed them?

What engine do you have?

 

this was doing it before the master cylinder issue. I checked over everything.

the neighbor kid is going to school for mechanics stuff and is bringing home a DRB-3 scanner from school for me tomorrow to try and cycle the abs unit.

 

I dont know if any fuses are part of the ABS system but check all your fuses in cab and in the engine bay

Also look to see if you accidently unconnected something from the ABS system

 

Lots of fluid comes out as normal when I bleed. Its the 4.7 engine