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2005 F250 sticking brakes, way too many calipers replaced
I love my 2005 F250, had it since new. I love everything except the brakes. They are 4 wheel disc and have been nothing but problematic since 5 years old (@ 40,000 mils). I am on my 11th caliper in 108,000 miles. 5 years old the calipers were warped and brake pads had a slanted wear. Stuck piston I assumed so I bought all new Ford calipers and rotors at about $2000 . Wasn't more than a year and a half I had a stuck caliper. I think LR. I began to carry a digital temp gun with me to monitor the heat. It was reading in the 500 degree range while the other 3 were high 100's to low 200's. I replaced both back calipers but with NAPA this time. Down the road another year and a front caliper hung up. So I bought two more calipers for the front. Up to eight new calipers. About a 18 months ago the LR was hung up again. I decided to just replace them one at a time now. 4 months later the RR hung up. Last week I replaced the LF caliper as it hung up. So we are at eleven new calipers in 108,000 miles. Today the truck began to have that pull and more gas pedal effort. I got home and temped the rotors. LF (newest) 211 degrees, RF 467 degrees, LR 505 degrees, RR 187 degrees.So two seem stuck today. I stopped at a business on the way home. I parked down hill in a stone lot. I tried to leave by backing up the hill in the stone lot and the front was locked and the truck spun in the stones. I had to put it in 4x4 to move it uphill back wards. What the heck is going on with stuck brakes? I'm in PA. We have some corrosion here but nothing too bad. I have always put new pads and rotors with any new caliper. The other week when I replaced the LF I bought a pressure gauge to screw into the caliper to measure brake pressure. All corners were about 1300-1400 psi. I have put my second full set of new brake hose on back in January. I pushed new fluid through the master cylinder and the trailer brake distribution block. No blockages seem to exist. No bent or crushed brake lines. I am at a loss. Any new ideas or similar experiences to share? I'm just getting irritated now.
Beats the he'll out of me. I have a 2006 250xl 4x4 and today my left rear froze...it's the only one I haven't replaced yet. The truck only has 86k Miles. I flushed new fluid through the lines each time I cracked the lines open. Replaced rubber lines at the ends as well.
Well, after searching and reading it seems it could be due to the pads sticking in the grooves from rust/corrosion I did have to grind the "ears" of the pads I installed on the other side. But that was just to get them to fit in the slots. Or due to the phenolic pistons swelling (not steel)used to reduce heat transfer to the fluid. Or due to sticking slide pins...take your pick. Any one by itself, or combination of them could be the culprit(s).
When I had this problem I flushed the brake lines until clear and then installed Powerstop calipers, rotors and pads on all four wheels. My 1999 F350 stops just as good as my BMW X3. I followed the break in procedure and the brakes have been strong for years. Before I did this, the truck would pull to one side when trying to stop.
There is one other thing to check before doing the swap. Check the lines going to the caliper. I read that they can look good, but balloon when trying to stop and no caliper replacement would fix it. I did not have to replace these lines one mine and I never found a good way to test it.
So when you say seized caliper....Do you mean the pistons are seizing.....or the caliper slide pins are seizing? The slide pins are famous for seizing up on these trucks.....they have to be cleaned and lubed regularly. I do mine spring and fall when I rotate tires. Lube slide pins, check and clean/lube the grooves the pads sit in, fully compress and extend the caliper pistons. So far I have I think 4 years on my fronts and 5 years on my rears....well 1 rear was just replaced due to me being an idiot and cross threading the caliper mounting bracket bolts.....Ummm don't ask lol
So when you say seized caliper....Do you mean the pistons are seizing.....or the caliper slide pins are seizing? The slide pins are famous for seizing up on these trucks.....they have to be cleaned and lubed regularly. I do mine spring and fall when I rotate tires. Lube slide pins, check and clean/lube the grooves the pads sit in, fully compress and extend the caliper pistons. So far I have I think 4 years on my fronts and 5 years on my rears....well 1 rear was just replaced due to me being an idiot and cross threading the caliper mounting bracket bolts.....Ummm don't ask lol
The pins never get old enough to seize. The pistons don't seem to seize either it's just they wind up sticking and hanging up. I have on occasion pushed the pistons back in and put a board in the gap of the rotor and hit the pedal to push them back out. Then again and install. They run ok for a short time and again begin to hang up? It's almost like trapped pressure is there but as mentioned, hoses replace twice as soon as 6 months ago. Ideally I'd like a pressure gauge on each caliper so when it happens I can jump out and look to see if there is holding pressure but that is kind of unrealistic to do.
There is one other thing to check before doing the swap. Check the lines going to the caliper. I read that they can look good, but balloon when trying to stop and no caliper replacement would fix it. I did not have to replace these lines one mine and I never found a good way to test it.
Is there anyway those anti-rattle clips could be causing any issues? Could they be jamming things up if I am installing them incorrectly? Is there an illustration or picture available on what they should look like installed?
I love my 2005 F250, had it since new. I love everything except the brakes. They are 4 wheel disc and have been nothing but problematic since 5 years old (@ 40,000 mils). I am on my 11th caliper in 108,000 miles. 5 years old the calipers were warped and brake pads had a slanted wear. Stuck piston I assumed so I bought all new Ford calipers and rotors at about $2000 . Wasn't more than a year and a half I had a stuck caliper. I think LR. I began to carry a digital temp gun with me to monitor the heat. It was reading in the 500 degree range while the other 3 were high 100's to low 200's. I replaced both back calipers but with NAPA this time. Down the road another year and a front caliper hung up. So I bought two more calipers for the front. Up to eight new calipers. About a 18 months ago the LR was hung up again. I decided to just replace them one at a time now. 4 months later the RR hung up. Last week I replaced the LF caliper as it hung up. So we are at eleven new calipers in 108,000 miles. Today the truck began to have that pull and more gas pedal effort. I got home and temped the rotors. LF (newest) 211 degrees, RF 467 degrees, LR 505 degrees, RR 187 degrees.So two seem stuck today. I stopped at a business on the way home. I parked down hill in a stone lot. I tried to leave by backing up the hill in the stone lot and the front was locked and the truck spun in the stones. I had to put it in 4x4 to move it uphill back wards. What the heck is going on with stuck brakes? I'm in PA. We have some corrosion here but nothing too bad. I have always put new pads and rotors with any new caliper. The other week when I replaced the LF I bought a pressure gauge to screw into the caliper to measure brake pressure. All corners were about 1300-1400 psi. I have put my second full set of new brake hose on back in January. I pushed new fluid through the master cylinder and the trailer brake distribution block. No blockages seem to exist. No bent or crushed brake lines. I am at a loss. Any new ideas or similar experiences to share? I'm just getting irritated now.
Thanks,
11 calipers is a lot, you obviously have an underlying problem and I bet it's been your master cylinder all along. Next time your caliper hangs, jack the truck up, and spin the wheel, it should either drag or be locked, next go to the master cylinder and loosen the brake line fitting, then go back and try spinning the wheel again, if it spins freely then you know your problem is in the master cylinder and you should probably replace it.
Any issue at the master cylinder would cause both brakes on one axle to hang.
Possible. It's also possible that the abs module has gunk in it and the valves are hanging up there. I agree that the smart move is to loosen the brake line or open the bleeder valve (preferred method) and see if the brakes release. If so then start backtracking from there.
Since you already replaced the flex lines to the calipers from frame that would eliminate rust in those lines causing a blockage. I have seen that quite a bit with a different manufacturers trucks.
I wish I could help you guys more on this but I was out of the brake industry in 2008, and warranty on the 2005-08 brakes didn't see this issue at that point. The 1999-2004 caliper contract went to Akebono and while there were issues with pin and pad sticking, and most of the pin issues due to Ford's wild as* guess to alter the original design of the pin boots over Akebono's objections (the designer), pistons were not a significant problem. TRW fought to get the contract back and did (the absorbed Kelsey-Hayes division was the prior supplier of many Ford platforms calipers), which was a pride issue, not any major fault of the older design as some have speculated. Over my 30 year career when a caliper design had this type of repeat problem it tended to be a piston issue, and that's where I tend to go with these, but I have no data to back that up.
The only way to collectively sort this out is whenever a wheel brake has this issue is to forensically inspect the wheel foundation brake to determine the cause and then keep track of the similarity. Same that is done with warranty issues.
Is it a retained fluid pressure issue, check by opening the bleeder.
Is it a stuck pin issue, check for frozen pins.
Is it a stuck pad issue, check for freedom of movement of the pad in the bracket.
Is it a stuck or dragging caliper piston issue ......... stuck is easy, dragging isn't.
Occasionally we would have a brand new caliper piston hang during a test, and it was easy for us to tell as our test vehicles had thermocouples in the outer brake pads. Initially you might see a small delta left to right on an axle. Since drivers switched vehicles every day the end-of-day discussions would warn others of the observation. Once it climbed to a 100F delta the driver typically reported a pull if it was a front brake. That still would not be something where you would observe an odor or dragging situation in a consumer invironment. But once we achieve that type of issue the vehicle was held from continuing and we would inspect the foundation brake for the cause, following the four listings above. Probably 75% of the time we would not find anything, but just pushing the piston all the was in and pumping it back out alleviated the issue. It seemed to be a hysteresis of the sealing o-ring bonding to the piston or caliper groove that didn't allow normal movement.
The other issue over the years that we heard of in the aftermarket side was aftermarket pistons swelling under heat. If the phenolic binder is not fully cured at temperature they can start to relax and it only takes 1 or 2 thousands, not something I would expect to be checked in the service environment. The other issue I had seen during my tenure was a bad design of the o-ring groove, again something that you'll never hear about. Usually in production that ends up a new suffix in the part number such as AA or AB to whatever. Again, no help to you.
To give you an idea what we would see are these two graphs from the same MY2000 Excursion under a specific test procedure, the first example with the problem observed during the second day of burnishing but corrected by doing what I mentioned above. The left front caliper had an issue where it was not as effective, therefore a right pull. The second is what a normal run should have looked like. Again, no help other then mentioning that if you have a history of the issue then I would be shooting the wheels maybe once every week to see if I could catch it before getting worse.
07-23-2018, 03:30 PM
