Hey everyone,

I was driving my truck down the freeway a few days ago and felt a lack of power that was quickly becoming worse and worse. I pulled off as soon as I could and found that the passenger side front brake was dragging bad, bad enough to where it caught fire around 30 seconds after I pulled over. I put it out with an old gnarly towel that was on the side of the off ramp. The driver side didn't appear to be real hot at the time, it has around 10K miles on it. I replaced that caliper the next day and took it for another drive. Now, both are dragging badly.

Both calipers are new (I did grease the caliper on the passenger side real good when I put it on the other day, so I don't believe it's a slide pin issue), the master cylinder and all the rubber brake lines were replaced around 7K miles ago. The master cylinder was replaced with a new one, not a rebuilt.

Does this sound like a plug in a line or another failed cylinder to you guys? Something else?

Oh, and I forgot to mention, my brake lights were on the following morning after the initial dragging episode happened. A quick pump of the pedal turned them off, but I thought that was strange.

Thanks for your time,
Dan

 

grease is a big no no use brake silicone grease will destroy brake rubber in short periods of time. crack open the bleeder valve see if you get any pressure do this when the wheel is locked up if you can. then with the bleeder open make sure the piston moves freely back in to its bore. new calipers can be worse than the core you bring them. if both wheels are locked up then I would tell you to test both calipers witch are probably fine then disconnect the line for your front brakes plug the master cylinder and see if this as any affect on the wheels. hows the pedal hard soft normal binding. make sure you put the right pads on it as cold they may be fine until it get hot from braking.

 

In my experience new and remains often have too rough of a surface at the mating/sliding points. No amount of lube makes them smoother. I rebuild/repair old ones as much as possible and when I do get replacements I file those surfaces smooth.

 

My apologies, when I said grease, I did mean brake silicone grease. I'll try some of these things tomorrow and see what happens.

Good advice, I'll take note for future reference.

 

Oh man, sorry for never responding. I came down with the flu during all this and forgot to update. My bad.

Anyway, it ended up being a real stupid thing. A bracket of sorts for some vacuum switch on the brake pedal (I'm guessing for the cruise control) had come loose and was holding the brake pedal down just enough to allow the brakes to drag. Not enough to make the brake lights come on while the truck was moving, not enough to stop the front wheels from turning with the front of the truck off the ground (or even feel any real drag), but just enough to create enough drag to heat the pads and calipers, then superheat the fluid, to where I suppose it expanded and applied additional pressure on the rotors and multiplying the issue.

The lesson I learned- never overlook the small things.

Thanks for the advice and time, though, I'm sure I'll use it all in the near future .
Dan

 

I recently had a very similar problem. Replaced everything in the brake system short of the hard lines. Turns out that I had 3 bad calipers in a row. Somehow all on the front right. Like BruteFord said, they often are remanufactured improperly. I got a high quality reman set from Motorcraft and thoroughly inspected the pistons to ensure that they were up to snuff and haven't had a problem since.

 

I had no idea that they sold reman Motorcraft... Did you get them from the dealership? And if so, how much of a cost difference compared to the parts stores?

I like to stick to OE parts as much as possible...

 

Depends what aftermarket brand you buy. But the core charge you pay online for motorcraft is a bit higher for remans than say Raybestos or Wagner. And even a reman Motorcraft caliper can suffer the hanging issue and you might go through 3 or so. I'm curious why so many have issues.

 

One place to get them is rockauto.com. I don't know how their prices compare to the dealership (due to logistical issues I don't shop at a dealership) but front calipers for my 1990 F150 are $36.79 each plus a $40 core charge for reman Ford parts, unloaded. That's about double the cheaper brands, but unless you're living on rice and beans the difference isn't really that much money.

 

Ford actually has reman sets that include everything, including the caliper mount, and they also sell NEW calipers. I talked to my shop for a long time and what they were telling me was that when the calipers get remaned they rarely resurface the pistons,which are often warped from past failures and overheating. I tested the MotorCraft reman ones before I threw them on to make sure they were good. The complete reman ones are about the same price as the new calipers. I think they were $220ish? I'll have to find the receipt.

 

I've never bought a reman caliper that didn't have brand new pistons. Do you mean they didn't properly hone out the cylinder? And who says brand new calipers for our trucks? I've only seen remanufactured ones before

 

The guys at my shop actually found them through Ford, new calipers. I can call them on Monday and get the part numbers for you gents.

 

Hell yes man. I'm curious how much a loaded set would put me back.