I was thinking about doing the dust seals on the front while I have it half way torn down. I've got the hula hoops swingin away on both sides. How hard is it to finish tearing down to the dust seals? I've read they don't make any difference really.

 

I have finally arrived to Brake Nirvana.
My F350 brakes finally exhibit sports car like feedback.
I am sooo relieved as it took much dissecting, trial and error to finally have what I could only dream about based on the last 10 years of ownership.
I KNOW what finally cured my dilemma was replacing the brake lines.

I can speculate here regarding the lines; from my perspective, they both swelled and most likely delaminated. These combinations caused the a condition of the dreaded "sticking caliper". I think the lines just swelled and wouldn't relieve pressure.
The OE lines of 10 years contributed to a very poor pedal response, too much needed applied pressure, and a sticking caliper condition.
Now my brakes show qualities that you would expect on a nice car. Incredibly firm feedback.

My Set up is as follows;
1. Motorcraft Rotors
2. OE Calipers (new) yes, you can still get them. If the part # starts with an "R" it's a remanufactured caliper.
3. Hawk LTS pads (green box) I challenge anyone to find better pads than these. Upgraded from Newish EBC "Yellow Stuff", these are hard and noisy as train brakes.
4. Motul DOT 5.1 Brake Fluid
5. All five Braided Stainless Steel Vinyl coated Brake Lines by Crown Performance. (talk about feedback, wow!)
Of course, all new clips, boots, and updated pins.

At first I played the game of "whack-a-mole" with an IR gun for isolation which became expensive. Driving under poor braking conditions for years turned out mainly to be the rubber lines and EBC (flintstone hard) yellow pads.

I can only recommend to take heed or else do it again.

 

The only issue with the LTS, and I've run two sets on my truck and actually tested them back in the day on the SD as an aftermarket competitors product, is the cold effectiveness. As long as your running warm your OK. If cold, at 60mph your going 88ft/sec, so a lower initial friction level in the first 5-7mph decal eats distance. The tests I ran were dead even in distance with OE as the OE had a better initial bite, the LTS came in later when the ft/sec was smaller.

That being said, as mentioned in an earlier post, it's what I run because I have crappy brakes on my one trailer. With trailers, they are a good choice.

As far as the brake hoses, people often don't understand how long rubber hoses like we have can, I'll use the word degrade the brake performance. A consumer has a better objective feel with a higher pedal, and what is not well known is by keeping the travel shorter, you get an increase in boosted hydraulic pressure before you hit booster knee or runout.

I don't have time for it right know but I have graphs of booster runout on SDs and you get to a pint in pedal travel where there is no more boosted effort, and the latter part of the brake travel is manual brakes. So if you keep in the boosted range due to a higher pedal, you can gain a few hundred psi, maybe 1800psi rather then 1500psi for 120lbs pedal effort. With a heavy truck, that can gain you a few yards.

Back to trees.

 

I didn't realize how good the SD OE pads respond to its intended application, at least something is on par with the aftermarket world. Thanks for sharing your results re; critical components.
"Yes, I would like to stop when the pedal is applied please. "

 

I can't say the same for the '99-'04 OE friction material. While I think the formulation in general is/was one of the best out there, on the Superduty is was never a good match. What was supplied for the '05 was better in its friction level and abrasive treatment of the rotors.

Materials like the Hawk LTS are a mid to high level metallic composition, a prominent type of formulation in the 80's and 90's. There's nothing wrong with that, but the OE trended away from those types to have a more consistence in-stop friction level with ABS development. As I said, I'm using it myself.

It's typical to see responce from people of the Hawk and Z pads say that the friction really comes in during the stop, and that's the Delta in friction due to temperature. For people towing especially in the hills, the temp is usually elevated and you just get good, higher friction.

As with all friction material, it's all a huge compromise, in friction, wear, noise, rotor treatment, etc. At the OE level, just about every vehicle has its own formulation, developed over a few years running vigorous testing. In the aftermarket there are few formulations, carried over different manufacturers and car lines, but trended by vehicle GVW. So some people may like a Bendix pad on an F-150, that same material sold at the store for a Silverado has complaints.

And the biggest variable of course is the condition a vehicle is operated under. The '99-'04 friction material worked well on the commercial operated trucks due to their higher brake workload, the conditions it was developed and tested under. However, put it in the conditions that most of us here on the forum drive and it wasn't such a good choice. Not enough on-brake wear to offset off-brake wear, therefore thickness variation and pulsation.

 

I've had bad luck with the OE brakes so it promotes a guy like me to swap out everything and look for an 'upgrade' product over OE.
After reading what you've shared, when these LTS pads wear out, I'll give OE pads another go for comparison.

 

Throwing out another brand of pad to get your take on them. I've had good experience with them on our other cars, at least as good as factory. The Centric Posi-Quiet pads. Anybody use them on these trucks? For comparison with the Hawk LTS and SD pads, they're half the price and include the hardware.

 

Benchwrench, if you happy with the Hawks then stay with them. As I said, for my '03 I'm on my second set and will get a third when these are gone.

Mark, I've no experience with those.