Today on my way to work (45min drive) I noticed my truck was running somewhat sluggish, it would vibrate like crazy, finally got it running somewhat better. Once I arrived at my place of employment , i noticed the smell of brakes burning, could not be mine, wrong about 45min later on my way home, the same issues, I decide to stop at my friends house enroute and at this point the Left rear driver side tire and rim was dang near hot enough to catch fire, all the others were alot cooler to the touch, jacked up the truck and let the brakes cool before removing lugs. come to find out the rear driver side caliper is either stuck or just gave out.as a check we bled the system, no luck, still wont spin freely, so tomorrow i am picking up a new caliper from autozone, oh yeah, the other side moves freely, so we know it's not the park break being stuck.

 

It's probably just a stuck slide pin. The rears should have the same mounting system as the fronts. If a pin gets stuck, it will have the caliper sitting crooked on the rotor and cause alot of that issue.

 

Maybe your right, We were thinking about the same thing, once we get the new part in and remove the old, we will investigate a little more, also I ha ve 9 day 4000 mile cross country trip in couple days, towing a trailer with a car, 3 kids, a wife and alot of crap, so i might just replace the entire thing, to include the slide pin, by the way how would i know if it's the slide pins?

oh yeah, when we tap on the caliper with a mallet, the drum will rotate, so what can that mean?

 

As you take off the caliper, if the pins are frozen, then the caliper will not slide off like it should.

 

Thanks for the advice, i will really keep an eye on the pins while we aer taking them off/out

 

the slide pins should have a rubber boot over them and should be well lubed. check to see if they are lubed or dry and pitting. sometimes the piston can stick too, you should be able to push that back with a c-clamp. after pushing it back, check for pitting, etc. on the cylinder walls

 

A funny side note:

I was following an older (96-98?) Taurus this afternoon, well, I was 2 cars behind her. There was some kind of smoke coming off the rear of the car almost like it was a coolant leak. I was trying to figure out what it was. I could tell from the smell as there wasn't any. Not at first anyways. I then smelled cooked brakes BIG time and the smoke was getting heavier from the left rear wheel well. We got to the next stop light and by then it was smoking pretty good. Enough that the driver had to have seen the puff of smoke go by her window and the smell, well, you know how bad brakes smell. She didn't stop. Drove about another .5 miles to the next light. It was red. Right before green, I pulled up next to her in the left hand turn lane and got her to roll down the window. It was a youngin driving (and talking on cell phone.) I told her that her brake where about to catch fire and that she needed to pull over NOW and call someone to come pick her up.

SHE HAD NO CLUE that there was anything wrong with her car. lol

 

Oblivious people! lol

As for the issue at hand, it is fairly common for the Super Duties to have rear brakes lock up. It can cause loss of brakes all together too, so check the other side as long as you are doing it!

 

All's well now, it was the caliper that went bad, the slide pins are also good, just to make sure I checked all the other calipers and they seem to work well. on mile 639 of 4020 mile trip from Miami, FL to Tacoma, WA.

 

Good to hear, hope the rest of your trip goes smooth...

 

Can you please define "went bad"? Was the piston jamming up or leaking or something along those lines? What did it look like?

 

Yeah, I was also curious as to what dlibson meant by the rear brakes on SuperDuty's are known to go bad... what part is the usual suspect?

I have a sticking right rear caliper and am unsure if it's the piston, the line or system needs flushed. The slide pins are free and I'm getting the system flushed this week (probably never been done so I figure it is time anyways)

 

Can you please define "went bad"? Was the piston jamming up or leaking or something along those lines? What did it look like?

The top piston as your looking down on the caliper would not for the love of.. retract at all, getting the caliper off took about 10 min to remove and some elbow grease. we did not see any obvious reason why it went bad, tried with c clam to push it in, the bottom piston retracted with no issues, but that top one would not, so we decided to remove it and replaced with new everything and double checked the new and all other calipers to ensure they worked, since i had less than 24 hrs to get on the road.

 

Thanks. I can't imagine a valve between the pistons, so it must have jammed up somehow. Do you still have the old caliper? If so, would be willing to mess with it and pull the piston out and look for burs/scratches?

 

No I don't have the old one, that ole core thing with the auto parts store