As I was bleeding the brakes on my 99 3.9L I got no fluid from the rear driver side bleeder, which led to me taking the whole bleeder out and pressing the brake. Still nothing.

It's sat a lot over the years and I do remember starting it up once and having no brake pressure and low fluid. I filled the fluid and everything seemed OK, just kinda soft. As far as I can tell the rest of the brakes work. Hasn't leaked since.

So if I had a leak at some point but the rest of the brakes are still working... is there a valve somewhere that closes when there's a leak?

If not, do I just pull lines and see if I can narrow down the location fluid stoppage?

Trying to figure out my next move. Thanks.

By the way. I got my Dakota in a trade (for basically free) years ago when a friend moved, but haven't had the time to get it going. I finally did the water pump and a few minor things and I'm ready to take it on as a project so I hope it's cool that I'm starting multiple threads, I (re)search as much as I can.

 

If you have pressure at left rear, that rules out the soft line, and isolated the blockage to between the rear tee and the wheel cylinder.

 

So is a blockage the only thing that makes sense here?

I can't help but thinking I must have had a leak at some point.

The T that's in the front left wheel well looks like it would be the easiest to get to, should I pull the corresponding line there and see what happens? Anything to look out for?

 

Sounds like that brake wheel cylinder is bad. I had both rear cylinders lock up on me you couldn't bleed them also. I would start with replacing the cylinder $12 that's it just be careful not to break the line as you remove it.

 

I thought about that, but didn't think that was really a failure mode of wheel cylinders.

Yours didn't even leak if you pulled the whole bleeder?

Maybe I will try pulling the line at the wheel there to see what happens. I'm happy to do the cylinders, but I'd like to prove to myself that fluid is at least getting there.

 

One bleed very slow and black muck came out the other would not bleed.

 

If you have pressure at the left rear and not the right rear, then everything is fine going to the rear tee (because one of the 2 rear corners has pressure)....

 

Ok, thanks.

For some reason I read 'wheel cylinder' as 'master cylinder in your first post. I thought all the brake lines were separate from the master cylinder.

The rear T is the one above the differential right?

I'll try the line at the wheel. Just need to figure out what size it is because I'd like to get a flare wrench for it.