I bought this F350 about a year ago and along fixing many different problems, I finally got to brakes - or rather front suspension in general. The truck make a pretty awful grinding noise when doing a hard, slow turn in either direction. I took the front wheels off and started inspecting. I noticed that the front right rotor is pretty badly scraped up from the outside and then I noticed this:



You can see that the caliper bracket is not centered on the rotor and I'm pretty sure this is what is scraping against it in turns. The other (left) side is properly centered.

I got a new rotor, thinking the rotor may be warped. Then I got a new caliper bracket, thinking that may be bent. No difference.

What else could this be? It seems that the distance from the front right hub to the spindle/driveshaft has changed. This would probably be a good time to mention the truck is 4x4. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I have it all ripped apart now and would very much like to fix it instead of putting it back together and waiting till next weekend.

Thanks guys.

 

I took a short video after looking at the whole driveshaft. The outer seal on the driveshaft is gone - I'm not entirely surprised in this as the front drive hasn't been engaged in a very long time, possibly ever. I did change the front diff fluid, just to make sure there was some there and it hasn't leaked. I'm guessing the inner seal is fine.

However, there seems to be too much space where the outer seal is...or am I just seeing things?

video: F350 outer driveshaft seal - YouTube

 

I put it all back together with a huge washer spacing out the caliper bracket so it wouldn't scrape the rotor. The grinding noise is gone! Now that I know this was the problem I still need to figure out how to really fix it. Anyone?

 

This link may touch on what is the problem with your brakes.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/4...ference-4.html
You have to play Dick Tracy but, I hope this helps.
The seal in your video is in the right spot it, butts up to the axle tube. It isn't pressed into the axle tube. It may be worn hard to tell.

 

Thank you Zedrive. This makes sooo much more sense now. From reading the thread "the hub surface is .070"+ more outward on the post-03/99 hub assemblies". I went back through the receipts of the previous owner and he did indeed have the passenger side hub replaced. It doesn't have the part number, but I bet he put the post-99 hub and never replaced the rotor...D'OH!

This makes me feel much better about the fix. I'll just make sure to replace the rotor with a post-99 rotor next time i'm doing a brake job. Thanks again!

-pete