I think it's been over a year since I was here, its good to see it still exists. I had a kiddo; so I mostly ignore my truck now, like a more normal person, and just drive it. But I guess that left it feeling a little starved for attention so it decided to lock the front drivers side caliper up hard. So it looks like I'm in to replace the front brakes for the 4th time in the 5 years I've owned the truck. So I've now had problems with frozen pistons or caliper slides on Irish parts store callipers, Napa callipers, and now 2 times with power stop.

So the question is, where do I find a decent caliper? Or am I an idiot and keep missing something? I've done new pads, rotors, callipers, and hoses every time I've done this. I use permatex ceramic brake grease, the really pricey Uber high temp orange stuff. Just enough on the slide pins and corners of the pads to get it done. And I re-grease those slide pins every other tire rotation. What am I doing wrong? This is getting pricey.

 

Sounds like you are hitting all the right install and maintenance points. Obviously you've done evil and karma is a biotch.

I jest, of course.

I'd recommend start fresh with simultaneous new hoses, calipers and pads. You could head to the Ford stealership and do all that for $899.37 but I'd suggest grabbing it all off RockAuto and paying for no less than middle quality. Rotors I'd go cheap, pads go quality like Hawk. Key here is just do the all of the components at the same time.

Or Ascend into the Realm and get SSBC V8 calipers, braided SS hoses and Cryo rotors.

 

OP, try AC Delco 10-4019 brake lubricant On the slides. You can get it a a dealership for around 20 bucks, will last several brake jobs and works very well.
As far as frozen caliper Pistons I think the local parts stores sell junk calipers, as I to have had a few lock up over the years.

 

Go to a wrecking yard and get a set of original Ford Mo Co calipers and rebuild them. A rebuild kit is like $5-$6 from your parts store. Either this, or get the Ford Mo Co units ready to go from your parts store. I just rebuilt my originals this year on my 2000 F350 with 180,000 on the clock. The Excursion still has the originals on it and haven't been rebuilt with 225,000 miles on the clock, but it stays in the garage.

Have you looked at the anti lock brake unit? It can be tested. Mine was bad after testing when I was having an issue with the truck pulling hard left while applying the brakes on occasion. Between this...solved most of the issue...and the calipers needing rebuild, most of that went away. Probably going to replace the hoses soon.

 

For the amount of money I've dropped on these brakes in the last 5 years I could've bought the ssbc's and been money ahead. Just didn't feel the need up front because I don't have mega wheels or rubber and no lift.


Could you explain or link to testing the abs unit so I can rule that out?

 

Do a search on the paper clip method. Basically you remove the dust covers off the valves, insert a paper clip, and have someone apply the brakes. You test each valve and see if that paper clip moves up or stays still.

 

Figured I'd update on the progress. I've hemmed and hawed, for almost a week now about what to do, while sucking smoke from my burning brake pads. Dealing with brakes that pull hard to the non-faded side when stopping and pull to oncoming traffic when driving, plain sucks. Last night my wife told me to fix the truck or we're taking her tiny subie on a 9 hour road trip this weekend, which I had forgotten about. This is a trip that will positively suck without the extra space of the truck, dog ( medium big shepherd), luggage, kiddo, rear facing car seats are the devil in a smallish car.

So this morning I called summit verified stock and ordered the ssbc v8 callipers. Then I called crown performance and ordered a five line set off brake hoses. And I'm having everything next dayed to mn. I'm done with these Chinese remaned parts. I've dropped more coin on them than if I'd done this to begin with.

The drivers side ebc rotor on the truck is likely beyond shot at this point. Pulses like crazy when driving, but oddly not while braking. So I'm guessing there's enough cementite formed in the rotor that the cancer can't be turned out. So I'll be using the cheaper set of power stops they accidentally sent me last year and never sent me a return label for. If they suck I'll buy one more set of ebc's, I'm a sucker when I find stuff not made in Asia, or maybe they'll be fine and I'll forget about them.

After the trip I'll either call inline tube and get a stainless front line kit or buy another roll of CuNi line and redo all the front hard lines. I already did everything in the back with CuNi.

I feel a bit like a Patsy spending over a grand on callipers and hoses, but I also feel like I've been taken when I realize I've spent even more on callipers, rotors, pads, hoses, and lines in the last five years and all I've got is a bin of scrap to show for it. So hopefully this is the end of it. I'm done with chinesium remans. If this doesn't work there will be a ccsb 02' 7.3 with brake parts that aren't justified by the condition of the body in the classifieds. Then I'll turn in my man card and buy a chebbie, or Prius

 

^^^...did you run the test on the abs unit?

 

Nope not yet. That's next while I'm waiting on parts. Even if that was the cause of the latest failure I'm unwilling to roll the dice on another set of remaned callipers. Also haven't really put my googlefu into finding a write up on it yet. I'll be looking later tonight after kiddo goes to bed.

 

I was having similar issues with my truck a few years ago. In 4 years I replaced 6 calipers! A friend suggested that I go with a higher quality brake fluid, DOT4 I believe. I haven't had an issue since.

He said that there is less water content in the DOT4. Might be something to consider since you are going to need new fluid.

 

A few years ago my SSBC V8s came with Hawk SuperDuty pads installed, so wait to see what you get.

For the rotors cheap chinesium white box might work out fine. I spent extra for cryos but even so the cementite will build under adverse conditions. I have a bit of road nearby that is about 1/8 mile to a right angle bend then another 1/8 to a right angle then etc. Which is rare around here but common in farmland. Driven with gusto this heats the brakes up (I've had them cherry red, which probably blew the cryo heat treat advantage) then with no brakes required I have a long stretch of highway to cool them off. It's great for resurfacing the rotors and destroying the cementite, even if the cryo is gone.

 

Had numerous issues with the front brakes on my 2006 F350; mainly getting hot and smoking. I don’t do my own brake work; had various non-Ford shops and brake chains replace things numerous times. Finally took it to a Ford dealer who used Motorcraft/Ford parts and never had a problem after that.

 

When I bought my old 7.3 it had 36x14.5 tires on it and ceramic brake pads. They didn't last long and I played the same game you did. I upgraded to 38x15.5s and it obviously got worse. Come to find out my pads were the problem in all my research. I bought ebc green stuffs and put them on the front, I never had another problem with the fronts. Then the rears started giving me problems, ebc green stuffs and no problems after that.

 

I've been Google and searching pretty consistently through every break I've had in the action these last few days. I still can't find anything about the abs unit test. I'll have to look at the unit and see if I can figure it out from your description.

The bottles shouldn't have any water in them when they're new, but I hear what your saying. The glycol is hygroscopic, and pulls moisture out of the atmosphere. The dot 4 has a higher wet boiling point and shouldn't fade as fast, and some of higher quality ones claim to have better corrosion resistance.

I will be taking your advice since I will be flushing the system.

I've got no idea what kind of pads are on there. They're painted black with no markings. I thought I read on summits site that they're carbon metallic.

I'm actually a big fan of the green stuff pads. That's what I've had in there the last two times a caliper burnt down on me. Along with ebc's dimpled and slotted rotors.

And I should say this, the last time the powerstop rotors locked up on me and burnt everything down. I called EBC to talk to tech support and double check the run-out specs for the rotors and they sent me a new set of rotors and pads pads for free, and they were here in 3 days. Even after I assured them their product didn't cause the failure.

And for what it's worth powerstops customer service was equally accommodating, though it took them a couple weeks before they actually sent the callipers. And they sent new rotors and pads, presumably out of guilt, maybe And despite plenty of badgering from me, they never sent me a return label for all the cores.

So when this is all said and done I think I might have two or three burnt down core sets of front callipers, one set of rear callipers cores, a set of powerstop pads for the front, maybe rear too, and an extra set of green stuff pads because ebc had sent me pads with the rotors and I wasn't expecting them. Aaannnddd none of it will fit after tonight when I put the ssbc's on. Though I will be using the rotors powerstop sent because they're there and I don't want to she'll out anymore money.

 

Soooooo....... how well do they work?