Very soft brakes after rebuild

[BanjoDude]

Hi guys,

Over the winter, I completely rebuilt the brakes on my '69 C-20. I kept it all stock, and replaced everything except the drums and the front shoes. Booster professionally rebuilt, new master, new hard lines, new hoses, new cylinders all around, and rear shoes (wheel seal had gone, soaking one side in oil from the rear end). I bled the lines with a vacuum bleeder.

I finally took it out to bed in the rears, and the pedal is really soft. It will stop the truck, but nowhere close to the braking power before I began this project. The pedal travels about halfway before I get any brake action. If I hold the pedal to the floor and hold it, the truck stops....eventually....and the brake warning light comes on until I release the pedal. I suppose now I know the warning circuit works... Before the rebuild, if I had held the pedal to the floor, it would have locked the rears pretty easily (also not ideal, but at least there was plenty of power). The rear drums are very warm as would be expected after bedding - not scorching hot by any means. I adjusted the rears to have a small bit of drag when installing the new pads. I checked under the truck for leaks at every connection and found one very small leak that was remedied by tightening the nut just a bit.

A few questions:

1) The booster came back from Booster Dewey with a note that said the pushrod was pre-adjusted. Should I pull the bolts and double-check that?

2) The brake light coming under heavy pedal would indicate that I'm missing power in one of the circuits, correct? The distribution block was completely seized, but I was able to free it up when I had it off the truck to repaint it. I found while converting the truck to LED that the PO had pulled the brake warning light socket out of the back of the dash and it was MIA - this might be why...

3) The master I got from NAPA looks a little different than the master that was on the truck. The bore is the same size, but the reservoir cover is completely different. Could this be the wrong master? I've attached before and after pics for reference.

In any event, I plan to bleed the brakes again tomorrow night.

What else should I look at? Any other advice?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Wes