I give up. I have a 89 F150 that makes a grinding noise under medium to hard braking that sounds and feels like I have no pads on my front brakes. I pulled the calipers and the pads and rotors look ok. There is a small chamfer in the outside edge of the pad on the driver side, and I mean small, it's only a 32nd wide, so I don't think that's my problem. Just for kicks, I pulled the hubs on the rear and the pads and hubs are fine, the pads were a tad glazed, but I roughed them slightly with sandpaper.

Next I replaced my front bearings. Bearings only, not outside races, as these looked and felt ok.

I still have the grinding noise and feel through the brake pedal. I suppose I could simply replace the pads on the front and see if that fixes it, but I'd like to be sure that is my problem before I do it, I'm getting kinda tired of taking those wheels off.

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks

 

Sounds to me like some crappy pads. That would probably also be the cheapest place to start. Make sure you put the magic "no-squeak" blue goo on, too...

 

could be rust, or a rock between you pads and the rotor.. my 78 had rust built up on the caliper support, far enough it was hitting my new rotors... also a dust sheild may be bent into the rotor.

 

on an outside chance did you check to see if anything contacted your rim. my truck had internal stciker type balance weights. for some reason I guess off balance, they were slightly hitting the caliper mount causing exessive noise and vibration. figured I throw that in for a possible....aloha