I changed my brakes on Sunday and everything was fine. Yesterday after some very hard braking I got home and noticed the smell of hot brakes. The two front wheels were to hot to touch. I pulled off the tires and couldnt spin the driver side wheel by hand and the passenger side barley moved. I took off both calipers and pushed in the pistons, pulled the slide pins and cleaned and reluibed them. They dont seem to pop out as freely when you push them in is there any way that they are the problem? I put everything back together and it seems to be working ok now. The pedal seems a little soft. Does anyone have any ideas on what would cause this to happen and what I could do to prevent it from happening in the future.

Thanks.

 

Check for restricted brake hoses. They like to collapse internally and cause the caliper to drag.

Steve

 

Steve,

Thanks for the reply. How would I tell if they collapsed internally and is there anything else that I should check for that could cause this problem?

 

Two things I can think of off hand. 1) you didn't by chance turn the calipers over pinching the line? That would be noticeable, I'm sure. And chances of doing it to both sides would be a freakish coincidence. 2) You torqued down the caliber bolts too far.

You could pop the bleeder caps off and let someone pump the pedal to check for flow. And re-check your fluid level in the master.

 

Thanks for the idea. I torqued down the caliper bolts to 25ft.lbs. I believe the Chiltons manual said it should be between 16-30 ft.lbs. Do you know if this is correct? I know I dont have them on upside down and Everything else seems correct.
I appreciate your help.

 

Do you live in the Rust Belt? The bracket that is crimped around the hose to mount it develops rust inside the bracket. The rust expands inward and pinches off the hose inside the bracket.

If you notice a very slow flow when bleeding, that's a pretty good sign. If in doubt, just remove the hose and see if you can blow through it.

Steve

 

Pull your tire off and pull your pads off, now on the back side of the caliper bracket is two small bolts with rubber bushings on them, this are pins and need to slide back and forth freely and that is what makes the pads release after braking, if you push onthem and they do not mone freely take them off and you will find there is some corrsion on them clean it off and put some grease on the pins and you should be in good shape. If you can not get the pins out you may have to buy to new brackets, it happen to me. They are only about $30.00 ea not much. Good luck.

 

Pumper,

I cleaned the living snot out of them last night. The two pins on the drivers side when pushed in release very slowy. The two on the passenger side seem to pop right out. I inserted, removed, cleaned the pins until nothing else came out with them. then I lightly lubed and inserted and still have a slow response time when pushed in all of the way. How do these pins work? What causes them to have enough force to push the pads back out? Would it be ok if I cleaned out the hole they go in with some sort of bottle brush or something? I checked the brake lines and they are all ok. Im pretty sure these pins are my problem.

 

Joe, It is ok to clean everything out even the slots the pins ride in, now check your rubber bushings on the pins to see if they are wheather crack and if so replace them. Now take some steel wool to your pins and shine them up and remove all corrsion and grease them real good. take a round brush or something that will get into the slots and clean. Now your question on how they work, what I was told they work on the pressure of the pads releasing back after you let off the brake peddle? Not sure about that but that is what I was told. Like I said in the last reponse I had the same problem and my right front tire would hardly spin by hand. This is what I did to correct the problem. Good luck