Update on 1994 Ram 1500 brakes

I went out to work on it about 6:30 Friday night. A continuation of the project from hell. As you might recall it took me 4 hours to get the rear wheels off last weekend. That night it took another 4 hours to get the rear brake drums off. I only had to heat and cool the passenger side 3 times. The drivers side I heated and cooled with oil, water, oil again, water again for a total of 6 times. The last time I melted beeswax around the pilot hole. I alternated with dead blow hammer, pry bars and a bfh. I finally resorted to a scissors jack as the weekend before with the wheel on that side. I did get it to pop off and bent this jack also. By then it was way past time to quit. I got back to it on Saturday after birthday lunch with my family. I replaced wheel cylinders, brake shoes and the springs that came in the replacement spring kit. I then replaced the brake lines from the wheel cylinders to the tee on the axle. By then I went in to the house for supper. While I was eating, an old friend from childhood called, and we talked about 45 minutes, and when I got my then cold supper finished, my parents called. After that I was not in the mood for more work, so it kept until after church and lunch yesterday. When I got the brakes bled twice from farthest wheel to nearest wheel. I took it for a test drive.
The only difference it had from last week was that it was back to the original symptoms and also swerving a little. I did reverse driving and braking to make the self adjusting mechanism adjust the rear shoes. It might be my imagination, but it seemed to brake better in reverse. Probably because I was going much slower. Evidently the proportioning valve centered itself with the bleeding.
It started with very little braking as it was very low on brake fluid. The antilock brake module is pulsating (chattering) and again/still I have very poor brakes. I had only found a little seepage past the wheel cylinder pistons, but it was still contained inside the rubber pushrod seals.
Today I got to wondering what the symptoms of a bad master cylinder are with an ABS system. I think that was distracting me. Next chance I get to look at it, I am going to check the vacuum brake booster line to see if it is sucking fluid. There was no evidence of leaks anywhere else. Any suggestions on the next thing to check. By the way the brake shoes were ready to be replaced, and as noted above the wheel cylinders were on their last leg. So far I have nor replaced anything that did not need to be.

You say poor brakes...

As in low/soft pedal?

Hard pedal, ineffective?

Locking, pulling, grabbing?

The symptoms of a bad master cylinder would be the same with or without ABS. So would the booster.

When does the ABS chatter? Is a wheel locking when it chatters?

Many times drum brakes don't work well with new shoes until the shoes wear to fit the drum. Symptoms are soft pedal and ineffective braking.

Braking in reverse doesn't adjust your brakes.
If your park brake cables are frozen replace them, and use it once or twice a week. If things are right inside the drums, it will ratchet the adjuster.

You did make sure the adjuster wasn't froze up?

My advice again - do all you can to update your brakes as needed - all the obvious stuff, rotors, shoes, pads, cylinders, lines - make sure you've got all the basics in place - then bite the bullet and bring it to a mechanic for the final touch.

That way you're not paying a guy a hundred bucks an hour for a simple brake job, you'll only pay for what you really need.

The newer ABS systems are just too much for the average shade tree mechanic to mess with. Once you need to get a computer involved in a fix, that's when you need a pro - ie. a guy with the right computer.

Maybe there's a pro here that really knows that braking system that can tell you otherwise, but personally I wouldn't go much further than you have.

There's no shame in being limited by the technology.

Hi, I think I can make a suggestion to help you get through this. You have 2 separate issues I believe. The low pedal or poor brake performance is due to a basic hydraulic or adjustment issue,air in lines or shoes installed "backwards" . The ABS pulsates, is that only just as you come to a halt ? If so, its gonna be a wheel speed sensor that has its signal dropping out , which the computer sees as a lock up condition. That is why the ABS activates. This is 4 wheel ABS , correct ? You can tell by looking for the sensor wires going to each front wheel. If no sensor wires, then it is only rear wheel ABS. Any way ,on 4 wheel ABS what I would do first is just disconnect one or the other of the front wheel speed sensor connectors up in the fender well. It doesn't matter which side . This will cause the ABS and BRAKE lights to come on, but will also disable the ABS from activating. Now drive it and see what you got. The most likely cause is rust around and under the sensors . What you are doing is just eliminating that pulsing for now so you can fix the basic trouble first. Do you have the rear shoes adjusted correctly? Are the shoes on so the longer shoe is in the rearmost position ? If all that is correct and pedal is still low and spongy , take a needle nose locking pliers and tape the jaw teeth up by wrapping with electrical tape. Now carefully use it to clamp the rear brake hose off, don't damage the hose, just enough to clamp off flow. Now see how the pedal is. Is it now high and tight ? If yes your trouble is air in the rears still or too loose of adjustment. If no change, try clamping each of the fronts, one at a time , without releasing the rear one. If doing this makes the pedal high and tight, you found the problem, air in the calipers. If you get to where all hoses are clamped and its still a bad pedal, its a bad master, air in the master, or air in the ABS hydraulic valve. I would do this testing stuff first, its easy and will help to eliminate some guesswork . The ABS can be fixed after you get the basic system performing correctly. A Dodge like that should have a great pedal feel without much pedal travel .

I had the same truck. I finally replaced the master cylinder. A lot of bleeding but it worked.

Thinking about the comment you made about the brakes feeling like they were working better in reverse got me to thinking that like Super-H-Mike said you may want to check if the shoes are on right.
Primary shoe, the one with the shorter piece of lining on the shoe needs to be on the forward of axle position for the self energizing design to function properly.
Installing them backwards could very well give the feeling that they are working better when in reverse.
Listen at the wheel and have someone step on the brake, if you are hearing an excessive amount of movement/squeaking from the shoes, springs etc it is an indication that the wheel cylinders are getting the fluid they need to operate, but it is also telling you the shoes are still way out of adjustment.
Were the drums replaced? Machined? Did they have grooves in them or a ridge on them?

Thanks for all replies. I have things to check now.
Adjusters were disassembled and lubed with anti-sieze. All other parts in rear were either cleaned or replaced with new. "Determined", I will have to pull the drums to check the linings. I did verify that the steel shoe frames were identical, but didn't pay attention to see if the new linings are all the same or different. I just went out to the garage to look at the core linings, and can't tell where the linings ended as large parts missing and rusty. Drums were not machined or replaced. No apparent damage, probably the best looking ones I have seen in a long time. "Super H" I will check on your suggestions, almost positive 4 wheel ABS. "Marlynr" Calipers were not removed, only worked on the bleeders to free them up. They are on top. T in NE. This is a 94 Dodge. The rear brake technology is 70's. There are two types of self adjusting drums. This type has the adjusters clear at the bottom and are activated by a lever that pivots off of a pin on the rear shoe. There is a newer design where the adjuster is above axle center and is connected with the parking brake cable. "Steve: hard pedal ineffective, sometimes locks one front wheel when chattering. Previous to working on it this winter, it did not ever lock up.

I had a 1996 ram 2500 and it had Delco front brakes. These calipers used a rubber sleeve where they ride on the pins. BAD DESIGN ! they can cause a lot if issues as rust builds up behind them. Some GM cars had the same issues. Last time I worked on the brakes before I sold it there was a very weird problem where sometimes it would pull this way other times the other way and then sometimes not at all. Drove down a gravel road and you could really see and feel the problem when you braked hard and then got out and seen which ones locked and which ones didn't. This last repair I ended up having to rebuild the frt. calipers to finally get it working good.