Calipers Gone Bad?
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Freshman User
Joined: May 2009
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Calipers Gone Bad?
I have had the really bad scraping, rubbing, grinding sound in my truck for some time now. I always thought that the hubs were going bad, but now something is locking up while im driving and when I push down hard on the brakes, its stops. This has me thinking that the calipers are bad. I just replaced the rotors and pads in the front and it did not help at all. The truck also shakes when I apply the brakes. Could it be the calipers?
Postmaster
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 2,564
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From: Wayyy NoCal, USA
How often have you serviced the calipers?
If you're not lubing the slide pins and flushing brake fluid every couple years, they may be siezing up and now need replacing.
Personally, I have never needed to replace or rebuild a caliper on a vehicle I maintained correctly from day one. BTW, most of my vehicles have been on the road far longer than average... 20+ years. Several cars/trucks with well over 200K, motorcycles with 75+K.
If you're not lubing the slide pins and flushing brake fluid every couple years, they may be siezing up and now need replacing.
Personally, I have never needed to replace or rebuild a caliper on a vehicle I maintained correctly from day one. BTW, most of my vehicles have been on the road far longer than average... 20+ years. Several cars/trucks with well over 200K, motorcycles with 75+K.
Post Fiend
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 6,127
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How often have you serviced the calipers?
If you're not lubing the slide pins and flushing brake fluid every couple years, they may be siezing up and now need replacing.
Personally, I have never needed to replace or rebuild a caliper on a vehicle I maintained correctly from day one. BTW, most of my vehicles have been on the road far longer than average... 20+ years. Several cars/trucks with well over 200K, motorcycles with 75+K.
If you're not lubing the slide pins and flushing brake fluid every couple years, they may be siezing up and now need replacing.
Personally, I have never needed to replace or rebuild a caliper on a vehicle I maintained correctly from day one. BTW, most of my vehicles have been on the road far longer than average... 20+ years. Several cars/trucks with well over 200K, motorcycles with 75+K.
You have never been in an area with high corrosion.
Chico, CA is not exactly the high brake stress capital of the world.
Depending on use (e.g. heavy use, and corrosion), calipers need to be disassembled to see the true condition of the piston / bore and the associated gaskets.
Excess heat will severely damage the EPDM seals gaskets that is not necessarily obvious in a visual inspection unless it is disassembled.
Plus, the most common corrosion is rust from the piston side inwards under the chrome / nickle plating.
As the rust works inwards, the seal is destroyed -- and if it is pushed back in "uninspected", the seal is compromised.
Even if this were not the case, pushing a dirty piston back into a clean bore is not the brightest of ideas.
So if you are going to disassemble it --- might as well throw in a rebuild kit.
Or... just slap on a pair of rebuilt calipers, which are typically cheaper than $80 a piece.
Postmaster
Joined: Jun 2008
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From: Wayyy NoCal, USA
Guilty as charged! Or is that fortunate?
You are correct that corrosion on piston and inside the bore are a big problem. Flushing the fluid is critical, and I do also remove the outer seal and inspect, wipe, and (if metal piston) very lightly grease the piston before pushing back in. As long as the exposed part of piston is pristine, I choose not to worry about dissasembling.
Out here, the only real corrosion problems are from not flushing fluid and ending up with pitted bores.
Post Fiend
Joined: Jul 2005
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OP location shows WV, which is moderate corrosion area --- a lot depend on the history of the truck... whether it was formerly in a high corrosion area.
Senior User
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 340
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From: Colorado foot hills
I have had the really bad scraping, rubbing, grinding sound in my truck for some time now. I always thought that the hubs were going bad, but now something is locking up while im driving and when I push down hard on the brakes, its stops. This has me thinking that the calipers are bad. I just replaced the rotors and pads in the front and it did not help at all. The truck also shakes when I apply the brakes. Could it be the calipers?
jammer
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Freshman User
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The brakes were messed up when I bought the truck, I thought new rotors would do the trick, but I was wrong. I am going to replace the calipers this weekend. So do you think it would be the calipers and not the hubs/bearings?
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