This is my buddies 02 4runner we are working on. He ordered a rebuild kit for the pistons in the master cylinder and we removed old cylinders and installed new ones. After we finished we followed FSM for bleeding brakes but can't get any pressure on pedal and front brakes we can only get a very light stream with no pressure out of it even after trying to bleed for a couple of hours. The backs bleed fine, with plenty of pressure. We have tried with ignition on and off, bled the master cylinder all to no avail. We still can't get any feeling in the pedal it goes all the way to the floor with no resistance and only get minimal fluid out of front bleeders.
We are now considering putting the original pistons back in to see if we get anything different but before we do we wanted to see if anyone had any advice.

 

Didnu try to bled the master cylinder first b4 u put it on the car

 

Yes and no. We did bleed it old school by pushing piston then holding fingers over ports when you release the piston (we didn't have mc bleed kit yet). So yes we did bleed it but not with bleed kit. We used MC bleed kit while in truck, should do the same thing I would think.

 

Does the truck have anti -lock brakes? It may need a special dealer tool to bleed if it does.

 

Yes it does. We were afraid it might need special dealer tools. Would that prevent you from being able to even do basic bleed on them though?

 

Is this the $1000 unit???

 

Yea I think he said it would be 1400 from dealer

 

I didn't see anything in the FSM about needing a special tool. Are ya'll saying there's a $1400 SST for bleeding antilock brakes?

 

I'm not familiar with the Tacoma's system, but some ABS systems require a tool to put the actuators into a bleed mode. I've even heard some will engage the ABS pump and basically bleed themselves.

 

It says to hook up Toyota hand held tester, which I found on Ebay for 2500 (only place I seem to have been able to find it), but it tells you to do it after you have bled the brakes the normal way. We figured we would at least have some pedal before we had to do that though.

 

The pdf you have there isn't for the 2002.

 

yes, you are suppose to have the factory computer! I had the same problem, but i just started the truck and bleed it with the truck running and it worked fine!!!

 

here ya go. hope this helps.

 

Thanks, that's the one we were using. Says to do procedure in step 4 before you attach hand held tester. We do step 4 but still have no pedal.

 

Suppose we could give it a try, don't see what the difference would be?

 

I am thinking you have a bad connection on of the front brake lines drawing air into the system .

This could have such a small fluid leak you would need to be looking in the correct place at the right time to see just a drip.

This will draw enough air into the system to drive you crazy trying to bleed the brakes.

If you have tried all else it is a thought .

can be a bleed screw or it can be a line connection that was taken apart.

 

having some problems with inconsistent brake pedal and was reviewing the .pdf in this thread and was wondering of this applied to the earlier model (96) with ABS? Post #13 is where the .pdf is located