Brake reservoir empty on one side

[candymancan]

Forgive me for ignorant here.. On my J10 someone replaced all the brake lines at one points as they all clean lines.

On the brake reservoir i poped the top.. siphoned the dirty rusty looking fluid out and i noticed only the large side had fluid. The smaller side didnt.

Normal ? Or should both side be filled ?.

[pksjeep]

This is not good. It appears you have a leak in the system. Fill it up, bleed the system, and look for a wet appearance after you drive it. I am guessing that you have a leaking rear wheel cylinder, or a leaking flex line going to the rear axle. Follow the brake lines it will appear wet at the bad point(s).

[candymancan]

Was wondering why my brakes worked but pulled

[Stuka]

It could be a leak some place. But kind of depends how long its been that way. As I recall the truck has been sitting. But as noted above, add fluid and see if there is a difference, bleed them as needed if you suspect any air in the system.

[candymancan]

Ya its been sitting for god knows how long. The guy lied about it being driven 6 months ago lol. Which i guess would make it a year ago as ive had it for 4 months or so now.

But i kniws he lied due to the condition of the gas. The carb and fuel lines.

Ill refill and check it out. Just didnt know if both sides need filled or not. Its a diff looking brake reservoir than what im used too. Does one side control a specific section of the brakes ?

[Srdayflyer]

one is the front brakes 1 is the rear brakes in the res. bottle

[tgreese]

The brakes will still work with one reservoir empty, even if that circuit is full of air. As mentioned, the cylinder is divided between front and rear so that if one circuit fails, you still have brakes.

You can see whether it's front or rear that's empty. Each chamber goes to the combination valve on the chassis. Front goes to the front brakes, rear to the rear. This is pictured in the TSM.

Large side should be the front since the disk calipers have a much larger volume than the drum cylinders. They could both be small if the owner attended to the level regularly, but the brakes in particular are designed to suffer some neglect without catastrophic failure. I expect you will pull the drums off the rear and one of the cylinders will have been leaking for a long time.