I guess soon crept up on me.

Had developed a pretty steady bounce in the front end but it was very slight.
Coupled with the pulsating pedal and lurching while coming to a stop, warped rotor was the obvious culprit. But I wanted to save up a little and do nice new front rotors and pads...

Running around today and everything was as usual until right about the time we were heading home, and after a hard left from a stop sign it felt much different.
At the point I felt the strong pull to the left... I smelled brake pad, and soking cast iron.

As luck would have it... the rotor seized pretty much vise tight to the caliper and kinda drug-hopped into a parking spot.

The parts monkey was kinda blown away when he saw me bust out the pneumatic/hydraulic bottle jack, impact, and my full battery of truckery tools(had not unloaded from the Colorado trip)

Everything to the rotor came off nice and easy since i just had it apart to do the hub seals...
Took a bit of profanity grease, a prybar... and a ball pein to get the caliper off the mangled rotor.

All said and done i spent 169$ and change on 2 duralast cheapo replacement rotors, and 1 21mm deep well. I actually finally managed to finish breaking my HF 21mm impact deep well.

Wheel up to wheel down and road testing in right at a half hour.
Lucky for the cold weather(40* is cold to us down here) helped cool everything down just enough that i didnt have to wait to start wrenching after we left the parts counter.

As much as I dislike Auto Zone...
They were right where they needed to be and had what I needed when I REALLY freakin needed it. In a real pinch it could have only cost 68$ for 1 rotor and I would have had to have dug through my misc tools box for a 21mm wrench instead of using the impact.

Moral of this story is...


Dont put off your freakin brake maintenance.
If this had happened about 1k miles ago it would have been really bad.(about where we were on the odometer when the icy roads were extra treacherous coming home from Denver).

 

Glad you were close to the parts house & able to get it done in the parking lot- Thats good work there. Nice to be able to do this stuff yourself & not be at the mercy of a shop especially when out of town.

 

Kudos for the gettin er dun Chris!

Now you are good to go down the road... but a full brake job will get you further. Cryo rotors, Hawk pads, fresh fluid my friend.

 

Bwahahahahaha at Profanity grease! No shortage of that around my garage. Glad you got'r back on the road

 

I'm glad that worked out Chris, I had the same thing happen to me - but with the LR wheel.

In my case (since it was a drive wheel), the smoke was billowing, and I was close to having a fire. The only reason I didn't know the issue was there was because I had just hooked up to my boat for the first time, and I thought this was going to be the way it was with towing. I drove it that way for just a few blocks - so I lucked out there.

I don't know if slotted rotors have entered your mind, but I have learned it's not worth paying extra money for that feature. They work great and they are long-lasting (so far), but the slots fill with rust and brake debris - where they bake in. This defeats the whole purpose of slotted rotors.

 

Since you mention towing, I'm kinda surprised you went for a pair of cheapo rotors, although I wouldn't say that price is always a fair indication of quality. And as much fun as it may be to hammer AutoZone, they did just replace my 3 year old batteries, free under warranty, 300 miles from home, no questions asked. I'm not complaining.

I tow with mine, in upstate NY hills (I won't refer to them as mountains, in deference to you folks with those really big hills) towing boats or campers, and I'm very concerned about having top quality stoppers. I have slotted rotors, but with ceramic pads which don't dust nearly as much. I've used this style on track cars for years, and was always satisfied. This is my first set on a truck, but so far in just over a year I'm happy.

 

I used some of that Profanity Grease on my 4" MBRP install last night, what a pain by-yourself!!
Good Job On your roadside repairs, It seems I'll pack tools for thousands of miles, and that 1 time I take em out….

 

"Profanity Grease", that should have been Stinky's name.

 

Tug...
Yeah I tend to agree on the slotted style... not efficient for our trucks.

David...
My pads on both front rotors look pretty much new. It is definitely time for a brake fluid flush tho...
Next time rotors are due I will get some nice cryo's.

 

I've been running cryo's on the front for over a year now, and in all honesty, have not seen any difference in braking.

 

I run cryo treated rotors on the Ex and my old F250 not because of improved braking, but to prevent hot spotting/black spotting/cementite forming that causes the brake shimmy/pedal pulsing/warped feeling when braking.

Stewart