My dad has been taking on the majority of the tasks, as he is retired and enjoys working on vehicles. In the last few months, the primary areas of focus have been bodywork and brakes.
We've run into a slight problem with the brakes. We bought brake parts (drums, cylinders, shoes, hardware, hoses, calipers, pads) and installed them. We bled the breaks, but found that the master cylinder leaked. So, we got a rebuilt one of those. It leaked too. So we got a new one, installed it, and bled the brakes again. Still no pedal. Goes all the way to the floor. We removed and re-bled the master cylinder. Still nothing. We even went so far as to order ANOTHER master cylinder. STILL no brakes.
We got in contact with PO and, surprise, the brakes have always been bad. So my dad got in touch with a guy who has a bit more knowledge on this topic than us, and he suggested to block off both master cylinder outlets, then try the brake pedal. That seemed to do something, as we had a hard pedal. That indicates it's definitely a "plumbing" problem, so we bought a new rear brake hose. When we went to remove the old one, it was frozen on. Eventually we got it, installed the new hose, then reattached the brake lines to the master cylinder. The result: STILL NO PEDAL.
We have bled the brakes two more times since then, and still no pedal.
My first question is this: When people refer to something as being "A Jeep Thing," are they referring to soft brakes?
Seriously, is this a common problem?
Secondarily, does anyone have any suggestions on this? What are we missing?