Brake problem has me stumped
 

I have a 2001 Sport Trac. My wife was driving it the other day, heard a loud pop and had almost no brakes. I have drove it and it seems like the brakes are sticking some, most noticeably when I am backing up as the transmission will jerk. I have also noticed that my brake lights do not come on when the brake pedal is pushed. Could my emergency brake be broken. Any ideas at all??

RE: Brake problem has me stumped
 

I can answer my questions know, but I'll post here so if anyone else has the problem, they can get help.
Found out that my emergency brake was indeed engaged . So my emergency brake popped . Which , in turn, caused my brake shoes on my rearbrakes to blow or pop out.... which caused my brake lights to not work. It's currently being fixed ,so if anything else comes from it, i'll post back an update.

RE: Brake problem has me stumped
 

Hi, I really don't understand why your brake light wouldn't work with a rear brake problem. As soon as you touch the brake pedal, the lights should come on. Maybe a different story about that.

Nic.

RE: Brake problem has me stumped
 

Not sure why either. The only thing that was done to my truck was the rear shoes where replaced and the emergency brake was fixed. The brake lights work fine now.
Two possibilities comes to mind. 1) Is there some kind of safety feature built in that when you ave brake problems the lights don't work or 2) The brake pedal was so tight that it was not going down far enough to engage the lights.... (I'm really grasping at straws lol)
Don't get me wrong,I love my sport -trac, but any problem I have had with it has not had an easy solution, or fix.

RE: Brake problem has me stumped
 

I think for safety reasons, Ford would not engineer a system that would cause your brake lights to stop working when there is a brake problem. That would just invite someone to rear end you. The Brake switch should be more sensitive than what you are talking about there, but it does seem to be the probable cause if you could not depress the brake pedal very far. Could be that the engineers designed the switch for a little play so those gifted drivers that run with their foot on the pedal at all times would not have their brake lights on all the time....Doh.