I picked up a 98 ram 1500 about 6 months ago.

I'm sitting on factory rims, with some 34" Mickey Thompson Baja Belted Tires. Just put on some new pads (Wagner thermoquiets) and its just not stopping that well. Pedal feels firm, but it needs to hit the floor to stop - even if I slam on the brakes, I cannot lock them. Its bad enough, that with no load, I have to give myself lots of following distance on the express way.

Are these trucks normally equipped with fairly lousy brakes?

Bled the brakes (couldn't bleed one of the calipers - nothing came out at the bleeder valve, so we bled it at the line (until I get a replacement caliper - Had to change the brass washer to fix a leak so I had to crack it open anyhow). Tonight, I'm going to adjust the rear drums - hoping they are simply out of adjustment.

Should that NOT fix the issue: What are my options? I already have stainless lines in the budget. What other calipers will fit this 98 ram 1500 sport - that is an economical upgrade?

*note: I already ran a search on the forums and found a couple of good threads, but some of the information was confusing, and I wasn't sure what would / wouldn't fit my application.

 

wow thermoquiets are bad? ive had a set of the ceramic ones on now for a month and love em. maybe you need oversized brakes haha. id def check to make sure your front brakes are flush against the rotor. are they semi metallic? those arent very effective under stress in my opinion. the have carbon metallic pads which is some of the best along with ceramic. how do the rotors look. were they resurfaced and are they even? I work at oreillys so these are routine q's i ask anyone with brake problems. maybe you dont have a lot of pressure in your booster. they do get weak after a while. 34's arent gonna help you much but that amount of distance is absured!

 

after rer reading your post im swaying towards the booster. tahts what feeding your lines with the pressure to keep those pads tight.

 

Bleeder valves like to fill with dirt and such, and plug up. You can just pull 'em out, clean 'em, and be good to go. (unless you break one off)

A good upgrade for you would be to get calipers for a light duty three quarter ton truck. (made in 94-96?) I do believe they use the same pads, but, the calipers have a larger piston. (more pressure for the same effort.) Should be a direct bolt on.

You could also go to the larger 1 ton rear slave cylinders for the drums..... same theory as the larger pistons in front.

Adjusting your rear brakes only controls pedal height. If you have a low pedal, need to adjust those rears.

 

Here's the background:

I bought the truck used 6 months ago. Brakes looked good lots of meat. I check them now and then and they still look meaty. Last week, I heard grinding from the passenger side. I check and sure enough the inner pad on the pass side is gone rubbing the backing plate against the rotor. The rest of the pads were all meaty. One of the slides was all gummed up and terribly difficult to remove. I think that was the problem.

I have 2 new front rotors. 2 new sets of thermoquiet pads. back brakes looked ok - didnt change them.

Replaced all of the bolts and slides and greased everything so it wouldn't bind up and wear only the inner pad again. Bled the backs, and fronts, but ran into an issue bleeding the front driver's side caliper - nothing came out the bleeder valve. so, we just bled it at the line and called it a day.

It doesn't feel like its stopping as well as it did when I bought it 6 months ago. So, before I potentially dump any $ into replacement calipers for this thing, I wanted to see if I couldn't just get some larger ones and call it a day.

 

The calipers are dirt cheap. Like 25 bucks a pop. Less than new rotors.... or pads, for that matter.....

You probably still have air trapped in the caliper with the bad bleeder. Do you get a pull when you step on the brake?

 

The no bleeding issue could also be a bad hose. And the caliper itself may be , and probably is ok. The slide pins are most likely seized. And those can be purchased separately.

 

the line wasnt plugged - bled it at the line. there could be air in the caliper - but it doesn't pull, so i think we're ok there. slide pins were all replaced and greased.

it stops. I don't feel unsafe driving it - as i said, i just leave some extra following distance - it simply isnt stopping enough to my tastes.

how much of an increase are the 3/4ton larger piston calipers over my current setup? what kind of performance can one expect? are they 25%, 50%? better? anyone have a part no on those? and its a direct swap? same pads, fittings, etc?

 

10 to 15% larger piston. Which translates to MUCH more clamping force, for the same pedal effort. The only difference between them, and the half-ton calipers, is the piston diameter, everything else is the same.

Did you put new rotors on as well when you did the brakes? You did clean the rust inhibitor off before installation didn't you?

 

I had a problem when i got some brake pads from Rockauto. The raybestos pads.

Here is what happened:
The blister pack with the hi temp lube for the shim brackets had burst in shipping, getting ALL OVER the face of one pad. I tried to clean it off with some brake fluid, but it didn't work. I almost hit my garage door after the test drive because it did not stop unless I stood on the brakes.

Did you get ANY grease on the pad surface? Also, did you lube the shim brackets? Because if you did not lube them, they may be sticking. ALSO, if you lubed them too much, it might have dripped down to the pads and rotors once they got hot.

Only use a light film of that grease.