I have an 03 Ram 1500 with 173,000 miles and had to do a brake job on it today. I had everything apart and was putting the passenger side back together. When I squeezed the pistons in with a c clamp, it blew out the piston on the driver side and it lost some fluid but the reservoir was still half full. I then discovered that on piston was frozen up so I bought a new caliber for the drivers side. I put everything back together and started bleeding the brakes. I can not get any fluid to the front brakes. I have worked for 4 hours and can't get fluid to either front brake. I have no peddle what so ever. Does anyone know what the problem is and how to correct it? I am truckless until I get this figured out.

I have replaced the driver side caliber one other time with no problems.

Thanks in advance
Tim Rowe

 

sounds like you have debre in the brake lines, from compressing the piston without opening the drain plug during compression.

 

Sounds to me like you have an open line or a massive amount of air in the brake system but I think open line. Tell me more about what happened when you were compressing the piston and blew out the driver's side piston. Were you compressing the driver's piston at the time?What do you mean by "blew out the piston on the driver's side"?
Are all of the brake lines original?Did you disconnect any lines? Did the brake reservior ever get empty? Take a look at your brake pistons, are they seated or fully extended?
Sorry for asking so many questions.
My first guess would be that in the course of working on the brakes that you either disconnected a line and didn't put it back on correctly or a line was cracked while you were handling the caliper.This should beeasy enough to figure out. No brake pedal can only be a couple of things.

 

Thanks for the input

I had taken apart both sides and gotten the rotors turned. I compressed the passinger side calibur with a c-clamp to compress the 2 pistons for installation on the pads. I put the calibur on and completed the passanger side. When I went around to the drivers side,one of the 2 pistons were out of thecalibur and there was some fluid loss but the reservor never got below half.The second piston was frozen and couldn't be compressed soI ended up replacing the calibur on the drivers side. I put the drivers side together with the new calibur and tried to bleed the brakes. I can not get any peddle. I took the line back loose from the calibur and pumped the pedal and get no fluid through the line. I also get no fluid on the passanger side when I try to bleed it. I took the line loose again on the drivers side and let it hang to see if it would gravity feed and still nothing. I can pump the pedal with the line loose and get a few drops of fluid but not much.

Are all of the brake lines original? Yes

Did you disconnect any lines? No

Did the brake reservior ever get empty? No

I am not getting any leakage any where to indicate a cracked or damaged line.

Like I said, I have put 173,000 on this truck and done all the brake jobs myself.I have probably done 4 complete brake jobs on it and never had a problem. I'm stumped!
I ordered a new master cylinder for it that will be in in the morning so I will see if that is the problem. I don't know how it could have went bad at that moment but I am out of options and have to get the truck back on the road by Monday. I am an Appraiser and if I don't drive, I starve.

 

sounds like something happened with the master cylinder. maybe the pressure from when you compressed the caliper piston in broke soemthing or ruptored something in the mastercylinder? never had the issue but it seems if you have checked the easy stuff time to go further up line. i dont know how to test one so maybe somebody else can chime in... i have blown pistons out but not complety out of the caliper. the pressure on the lines is pretty high when compressing calipers and i have always been taught to remove the brake fluid resevour cap so it can overflow as needed. not saying you didnt just throwing that out. hope you get her fixed man...what engine do you have?

 

4.7

No, I didn't take off the cap. Lesson learned!

 

Whats the odds?

The Master cylinder fixed it.

Thanks

 

good glad to hear your bake on the road. how much did it cost you?

 

Try doing one side at a time to keep the caliper pistons in place while compressing the other side. Open the bleeder on the caliper just a little to keep from back flushing contaminants into the MC when compressing the caliper pistons and keep all parts as clean as possible. This should help with the next brake job! hope this helps

 

Rotors are pretty cheep for our trucks too, about 35 bucks or so, easier and quicker for me to change them rather than machine them