well .. had a bit of excitement today .. we wen't to town to get a few things .. and i was really enjoying the ride ..

i'd dumped a good bit of clean atf in the oil tank and boy does she love to drink out of a fresh bottle of good atf .. well all was great until about 3 miles from the house ..

then everything started a shakin' .. i pulled over quick .. because it felt like a tire was gonna go .. but a quick kick and look inspection turned up nothing .. hmm ..

whatever it is i will know soon enough i said ..

i could tell it was really grabbing at one of the wheels .. and something was bound to get hot enough to indicate the problem ..

well she kept on a goin' buckin but drivin. .. and getting worse by the second .. it began pulling hard and i had to keep the wheel well off center to continue straight .. now i was suspecting brakes or wheel bearing up front ..

finally it got pretty bad and i stopped to have a look ..

driver side rotor was glowing red .. not good ..

the pads were smoldering but hadn't caught fire so i just sat there a minute till they returned to their normal shiny steel color ..

i was only about 1/4 mile from the house at this point so at least i wasn't way out there far away with it doing this ..

upon starting down the road again .. i pushed down the stop pedal and it went straight to the floor .. so i guess the hot brake fluid had begun boiling and traveled up to the master .. and was boiling at all the lines ...

after a minute and a few pumps i again got weak pedal .. so hoping this was just a problem while overheated ..

anyway .. when i got home i put a fan on that wheel and after 5 minutes i misted water on there to cool it slowly in hopes of avoiding warping somewhere .. everything was hot .. i was worried the lock out selector would melt .. the rim was hot to the tire .. the lugs were hot hot hot ..

i will pull it apart tomorrow to have a closer look .. but here's a little backstory ..

about a month ago i heard a bit of a chirp chirp chirp while rolling from the driver side .. since i wen't through and replaced everything on the back end last year .. brakes hardware .. checked bearings .. seals .. i strongly suspected the front .. either a bearing or brake .. i took it down and disassembled the caliper .. everything was rust .. and wire wheeled it and anti-siezed all the contact points .. that seemed to fix it .. and i thought it musta just been a pad rubbing or something .. but now it looks like i may have just bought a little time whereas there was a problem with one of the caliper pistons ..

or the slide .. question on this .. i have the twin piston caliper with a drive in 'I' drift .. i don't think there is any slide pin .. just the whole caliper assembly .. is this supposed to slide much .. i mean it was jammed in there tight i really had to **** on that 'I' drift .. so i was guessing it must pull a slight bit at a time here but not really move much .. is this drift supposed to be really tight fitting or with enough slack to slide a little ..

i strongly suspect .. with how quickly the symptoms came on from onset that this was a stuck piston .. but i haven't experienced this yet so if anyone with this caliper has had similar thing happen what was it ..

my idea to keep on the road until i can repair this is to wedge a 2x4 or some cutup wood pieces between the pads the caliper .. and use plenty of bailing wire to hold it in place .. bolt or wire the caliper to the frame or some other good location .. any reason this is a bad idea other then 3/4 braking power ??

if it were a problem with the proportioning valve or master it would affect both front brakes correct ?

fortunately rockauto has one on clearance for $15 and no core .. so .. score !!

anyone have anything good / bad to say about >> AUTOSPECIALTY / KELSEY-HAYES 4185020 >> i usually spring for centric brand .. but this looks like a good deal and centric wants a $10 dollar core .. no need for hardware i don't suppose ..


i think i have an idea what to expect but .. your thoughts ... suggestions .. hurled curse words are appreciated ..

 

I've had a caliper stick before, causing similar issues. Truck didn't know it power wise, but things were smoldering hot when I got where I was going. Whacked it with a steel bar a few times, let it cool, and at the next stop, everything was normal.

 

Brakes are a good thing to have 100%of

 

yea .. they're nice to have .. bit i drive a stick .. so already 75% of my braking is on the engine anyway .. my thinking is i would rather be out one then have it stuck and boil all my brakes .. i can always dump the clutch in a pinch and stop well enough ..

truth is i don't much trust a belt driven vacuum pump anyway .. so i'm always prepared to stop by other means should the need arise .. if i had an auto transmission i would absolutely get a hydro brakes ..

ohhh .. i will wack it with a steel bar it'll be my pleasure

 

I think some of the earlier GMC's had hydroboost braking powered off the pump from the engine belts.

I wouldn't drive on the road without the brakes being proper since there are all kinds of liability there.

 

i had a caliper on the 02 lock up on me 20 miles from home. when i pulled into the parking lot everything was fine. 1/2 hour later i left for home, and got 5 miles down the road when the truck started pulling real hard to the driver side.
i hit the rotor with an infrared thermometer and it was 1400 degrees.
le tit cool off for 45 minutes, it was down to 150 degrees.
made it another 4 miles and found a safe spot to pull over and cool off.
took me 4 1/2 hours to make it home doing the hop and cool method.

 

All hydroboost boosters are powered off the power steering pump, which is belt driven.
They also incorporate a small gas reservoir which holds enough pressure to give you one or two pumps of the brakes with the engine off(for emergency stops).

On U-haul rigs, I've also seen an electric booster pump of some sort; with the engine off, if you pressed on the brakes, you could hear it come on and give you assist.

The problem is, what is proper?
In my case, I'd never had trouble with the caliper sticking; I'd bought the vehicle and let it sit over the winter(needed work), then took a trip as part getting it running. After giving it a few whacks and dislodging the rust(I'm guessing), I never had any trouble after that.

I'm guessing most cases here are similar - if you *know* the brakes are bad, you will fix them. But anything can fail at any time, and often will at the worst possible time, after you 'trust' that it is working perfectly.

 

This , I believe, was what the OP was referring to "...my idea to keep on the road until i can repair this is to wedge a 2x4 or some cutup wood pieces between the pads the caliper .. and use plenty of bailing wire to hold it in place .. bolt or wire the caliper to the frame or some other good location .. any reason this is a bad idea other then 3/4 braking power ??..." when I made my comment referring to him driving with 3 of 4 wheels with good brakes, as seen below.

Originally Posted by Leroy Unlisted View Post
yea .. they're nice to have .. bit i drive a stick .. so already 75% of my braking is on the engine anyway .. my thinking is i would rather be out one then have it stuck and boil all my brakes .. i can always dump the clutch in a pinch and stop well enough..."

 

I personally think it's a very bad idea to drive the truck right now, the rotor glowing like that I'd replace as it could be heat cracked and could break. The wheel bearings, seals and even the hub I would clean and carefully go over for cracks and warping, definitely repack the bearings as that grease is toast.

As for the 2x4 in the brake caliper, don't do that if you get in an accident even if not your fault your insurance company will instantly blame you and deny you coverage and you could be looking as thousands in law suites. Not worth it for a few hundred in new brake components.

You will also need to completely flush the brake fluid as it's now toast too and if I were in your shoes I'd change all the brake components on the other side as well.

JM2C be safe

 

well i ordered a new caliper and pads ..

they'll be here in a few days ..

after this the entire system will be new except pass side caliper ..

and i'm about to pull it apart right now ..

i was also thinking about the grease in the wheel bearing ..

surely it's burned up .. so gotta repack all that .. and preferably the hub internals ..

i have the lock out 4x4 dual caliper front end i think it's the ttb 44 ..

can anyone explain how to take this apart and grease the hub and bearings ..

i have never even got into the front end except a few weeks ago and all i did was pull the caliper and pads and grease brake contact points .. i seem to remember trying to remove the hub when i bought the truck ..

and it gave me a fit so i just left it alone never did grease it .. never been a problem .. but i would like tips on it now if you have advice on how to get in there .. gonna go out in a few minutes and start tearing into it .. don't know what to expect .. but it's usually one bolt out followed by another .. please give advice if u done been in there .. thanks !

 

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...l#post11243835

 

okay .. well i dug into it ..

it's all coming back to me now what was the hangup last time ..

it was that the chrome cover with the locking selector was stuck on there after removing the bolts .. and i didn't wan't to jam a screwdriver between it and the hub face to free it ..

well .. i wen't ahead and jamed it in there this time .. once it's off it's not so complicated in there .. it did knick a bit of chrome on the edge .. but no one would ever notice ..

the good news is on the inside everything still looks like new .. nothing at all looks worn .. i don't know how they usually look but i was surprised that there was no wear because i do lock the hubs and go crawlin' now and again .. it was still nicely packed with some good looking grease grease that wasn't burned thankfully .. i haven't serviced it in 5 years and it sat 10 years before that .. so ... last guy musta used good stuff 15 years ago .. still gonna repack em' with some nice premium syn-power grease though .. hold me over another 15 years ..

bad news is that the rotor warped .. so i spent the afternoon turning it with the cutoff wheel .. got the outside face done .. i believe i got it 90% smooth .. hopefully another 5% will cutoff on new pads .. still have to do the inside .. it was a bear .. good deal of warpage but i think they are salvageable ..

the root cause of the problem i believe .. was uneven pad wear .. one side was fatter and the other slimer on each opposite pad .. so the pistons were driving crooked .. this probably lead to binding in the piston bore not helped with torn rubber boots .. so probably i could have avoided .. or extended the time until i would have had to replace the caliper had i installed new pads sooner and thereby returned the piston travel straight ahead ..

gonna cut the other side and repack the grease tomorrow .. and put it back together .. install new pads all around as well as grease the other hub and install the new caliper .. should be nice and fresh ..

 

My van did that to me in some switchbacks last month, but thanks to a cooler line leak it did actually catch fire. Luckily we had enough water on hand to get it out, otherwise the van would have been a loss. After a half hour or so it cooled down, and once the fluid was back in the caliper it all worked fine. I did put a new caliper on, about all I could see wrong was that the pads were quite low, just about to go to the rivets. I wasn't concerned, though, as the front end is going away this summer in favor of a bit straighter of an axle, so it really sucks to have put a caliper and pads on it.

 

straight axle ..

i think that's what did mine in .. probably when the piston is extended out there it has less in the bore to keep it lined up ..

but .. i got lucky this time .. everything i needed was closeout sale on rockauto ..

 

All rotors have a minimum thickness for safe operation if they are warped then they will likely be under thickness. They are usually reasonably priced especially on closeout sales.