So recently we started hearing a horrible grinding. It is reminiscent of pads being completely gone, metal to metal grinding, but not as bad and without any high pitch noise to it, just the low groan/grind. I took all the wheels off to inspect the pads, and the fronts were fine (in fact, looked exactly like they did 2 years ago when I checked ~ 12k miles). The rears, however, were certainly past service life, but had measurable pad block left. I didn't see the tell-tale "screech" arm that many auto pads have to warn you when they need changed - do these come with some sort of strange pad material at the bottom to scare you into changing them lol? Anyone else have this experience? I'm worried I have some other problem, but I'm 99% sure it is a brake noise since it only happens at low speeds when braking, and goes away if you let of the brake pedal. All 4 rotors were smooth to the touch, I don't think they are actually grinding on anything... I will be changing out rear pads but is there anything else I should be checking/worried about?

Jon

 

Year make model of truck???<O</O
Check your E-Brakes if it has rear disc brakes. Chances are the anchor pins that hold the Ebrake shoes have pulled through the backing plate and the pins & clips are being ground up. This also allows the shoes to float around which isn’t good. The plates are noted to rot out. As a temp fix you can use standard drum brake anchors, springs & retainers along with a modified fender washer. This may or may not work for you depends how bad the backers are. Use the fender washers on the back side of the plate and push the anchor pin through it. You need to get a fender washer with a small enough hole so the pin doesn’t pull through. The forward washer will need to be trimmed to fit down in the recess on the plate, the rear you dont have to modify.
I did this and it works great until I get the time to do it right. I plan to get the new plates nickel plated.<O</O

 

I tried to update my signature, but it isn't showing up (at least not for me). Truck is a 2004 F250 4WD CCLB 6.0 PSD.
Would the e-brake locking up still ease off if I let off the brakes? It goes away completely when I do, I would think if something was mechanically damaged with the e-brake it would do it continuously.

 

My Ebrake only made a squealing noise at low speed take off in the mornings. Sounded like a bad u-joint.
Inspect the Ebrakes and get back to us. You can see the anchor pins simply by crawling under it and looking at the rear brake backing plates.
Bottom line here is we can guess all day so do some more troubleshooting.
The pads should have the squealers you just can see them.
You need to pull the caliper to look at the Ebrakes might as well replace the pads if they are low.
Close the loop here when you do find the problem.
PS. I do see your updated signature.<O</O

 

Well, mystery solved, I'm just lazy. Right rear rotor was all scratched up on the back only. I noticed that the left side inner pad was significantly more worn, but only checked the outer surface of the right side rotor. Inner surface is torn up as I would have expected from the noise. Interestingly, the pads had NO screech arm... nothing to warn me at all. Oh well, $100 oops.