I need more stopping power. Is there a front caliper setup that you guys are using to get better brake performance? Either a direct bolt-in swap from a heavier vehicle (F350??) or a completely new aftermarket setup??
View 3 RepliesJust took a drive to Home Depot, hopped out of the excursion and got a whiff of burning brakes. I'm thinking i have a stuck caliper on the rear driver side just enough to cause the smell but not enough to slow acceleration or speed up deceleration. Should I just grease up the calipers?
View 14 RepliesI have two 2002 ford Excursions, both with 7.3, one 2WD and one 4WD. I have replaced ALL brake calipers with lifetime warranty Napa semi-calipers. It is sometimes an intermittent problem, I might have smoking brakes on one wheel (mostly the rears) one day and it will work fine for weeks or months and then do it again. It seems that about 1X per year I end up having to replace the calipers as they seize up and cause the brakes to smoke and cooks the caliper piston boot to a crisp.
I use high temp brake caliper grease (not sure if it is silicone based) and bleed the brake system about 1X per year because I thought the brake fluid was absorbing too much moisture. The slide pins come pre-greased, but I always check and re-grease them. Could I be putting too much grease onto the slide pins, Hydrolock?
I live in high humidity, in the middle of a rain forest near (about 5 miles away) a live volcano, Kilauea, on the island of Hawaii. Our area is very wet and we have acid raid and acid air (H2SO4 volcanic smog in the air) which corrodes everything, corroded pistons getting stuck?
I have not tried other brands of calipers because I cannot afford to keep buying new brands, I just trade in the toasted calipers at Napa for no charge. I have replaced all the rubber brake hoses and i upgraded to DOT4 (not silicone based) blue racing brake fluid that has a very high wet and dry boiling point. I am thinking of investing in stainless steel calipers, but those are pricey.
Front caliper replacements--fwd? Person I bought this from said they'd just relined the brakes before I got it. After having it a week, I randomly checked torgue on lug nuts...a whopping 80 ft lbs. So now I have the vibrating rotors. When I back up I hear scraping like a bad set of bicycle brakes against an out of round rim. The pads are pretty thick. I bought new rotors and pads but I wonder if I shouldn't get calipers as well. This X likes to bite me in the butt--something simple is always about 5 times more complicated than anticipated.
View 1 RepliesDriving home today I started smelling a burnt clutch smell!
Well since I have an automatic, I wasn't to worried until my 6 yr old gets out when we get home and says "DAD something stinks really bad out here!"
Get out and wow!! I have never had a caliper lock up on any vehicle I have ever owned! It stunk like I burnt a clutch out of a standard tranny!
So I start poking around and the left rear caliper is locked up, rotor is blue and you can hear it popping like a valve spring cooling down.
So my question is is there anything to look for other than the normal? I will be getting the brake system power bleed after I replace the caliper. I already checked the brake lines and there are no obvious issues. It is possible the rubber inner lining is toast.
I have a 2000 Limited Ex and was wondering can upgrade the heater controls to the digital controls. What would have to be done to accomplish this task?
View 7 RepliesAs I do my 2005+ headlight upgrade, I also want to do an electrical upgrade to make the headlights brighter.
I want to put relays in, instead of pumping all the current through the headlight switch and high beam switches.
Low beams separate in the engine bay fuse panel to feed separate 10 amp fuses. High beams separate at a splice point in the main harness.
I had planned on running 12 AWG wire, which I know is WAY overkill as it normally supports over 20 amps. I'd like to reuse as much of the factory wiring if I can so that I don't have abandoned wires floating around. What gauge wires Ford used for the Low Beam and High Beam feeds to the headlight connectors? I feel that 14 gauge should be fine.
So I have a 2000 6.8l V10 that I recently swapped the engine on (reman). While I was doing that, I decide to do some LED upgrades. I swapped out the turn signals, side marker lights, and headlights with LEDs. I added some LED fog lights, and I have a Rigid light bar.
I replaced pretty much everything on attached to the engine aside from the alternator (it didn't give me any problems, so I figured it was good).
When the truck is running with the lights off, there are 6 LED strips running as DRLs, when the lights are switched on, the side marker, turn signal and headlights turn on. When I switch to high beams, my fogs turn on. The light bar is on its own switch.
During the day with the headlights off, I dont notice the battery/charging system indicator light turn on at all. At night, when I flip the headlights on, I've noticed that it sporadically and randomly flash. The flashing indicator light does not appear to be associated with bumps or anything.
It does not seem to matter if I have just the DRL/low beams on, DRL/high beams+fogs, or DRL/high beams+fogs + light bar on. The indicator light comes and goes with the same random consistency regardless of how much power I am sucking from the alternator/battery. The RPM's of the engine also appear to have no effect on when/how often the indicator light comes on...
I drove for over an hour last night, and the voltage gauge never changed, so the battery does not *seem* to be draining (~1 year old Optima yellow). I added an extra ground wire going from the battery to the engine about a year ago (long before this LED upgrade) to ensure a good ground, so I dont *think* the wires are the issue. Is my alternator suddenly going bad? Any higher output ones I could replace it with? Is it a simple fix that does not require a new alternator?
Here are some pics of the lights:
(This was before the fog light install)
These lights only come on when the truck is in reverse:
I have a 99 150 4 wheel drive..5.4 ..auto...110.000 mile.....notice when driving in town in hot weather....when you are on and off the brake petal a lot....stop and go..etc.....the truck starts to hop or bounce....some....I got out ..and notice the right or passenger side front brake seems a lot hotter than the drivers side......but ...when it does that....the steering wheel doesn't pull to one side...when changing pads before ..notice no one side worse for ware than other...thinking it must be sticking brake calipers....they don't do this say on interstate driving even when on and off the petal some...
View 1 RepliesI have a 2001 mustang GT. I have 2 front calipers that are sticking. I changed both calipers twice, new brake hoses, bled all the wheels and the master cylinder. Why the calipers won't release?
View 19 RepliesI just bought a 1998 F150 2wd with the 4.6L(no ABS) to be my beater home depot truck. The brakes barely functioned, so I replaced the front bearings, rotors, pads, and calipers. I bled the brakes exactly like I normally do. When I tried to move the truck, the rear tires spun with the front completely locked(also discovered the right rear line had a hole and crimped the line for a moment, but it was the tire that was spinning).
I searched and many people said that bad rubber lines cause the calipers to lockup. I loosened the bleed valves and the fronts were still locked(jacked up the truck and used a breaker bar on lug nuts trying to rotate each tire). I am guessing that it has to be master cylinder or the steel lines. Any tests I could do to narrow down this issue further?
2011 f250 6.2. put it in the shop to have the rotors turned, and front brakes while they were under there. Now it pulls to the right whenever you apply the brakes. Can smell brakes on the left front after a short drive time. Replaced that caliper and it's still doing the same thing. I'm stumped at this point.
View 9 RepliesJust replaced front calipers on 2005 Trailblazer, when I tried to bleed I get no fluid to either caliper. I lost some fluid in the master but I filled it and checked rear brakes they work fine and have fluid, and I got no air from them. I also added fluid to each caliper.
View 9 RepliesSince I have this car i noticed that the brake calipers (especially the front) are very noisy. This problem is caused by caliper's floating guides that become loose and the entire brake caliper shakes. I asked at a kia mechanic who answered to me to change the calipers support. For my trusted mechanic is useless because, according to him, this type of support have this problem (he tell me that also others car have this problem like older nissan micra) and sooner or later would return noisy.
Some time ago with greasing the floating guides i temporary solved but drying up over time the problem come back.
Fairly recently acquired 1992 525i, 101,000 miles. Love the car and driving feel, don't mind putting the effort in but do not know where to start. She needed some work including both upper and lower control arm bushings. Replaced those over the last couple of weekends. This week the front brake calipers are locking up adding significant drag to the car, overheating the front brakes, smells and feels hot. Rear brakes appear to be fine. Seller had replaced brakes within the last 5,000 miles. I thought maybe he did not 'grease' the caliper guide pins and components, so I tried that and all was well for a few miles then back to the same locking brake calipers.
Is this brake caliper, brake cylinder, master cylinder or ABS related? Do I need to bleed the system? I cannot not imagine how but could replacing any of the front suspension components have had anything to do with this? I read on one thread about an interconnection (power assist) provided by the power steering pump and that 'over filling' the PS reservoir could cause such a problem. I did add fluid to the reservoir recently but the level is between the marks on the cap dip stick.
If caliper, or cylinder related is this DYI? How about the ABS? I have been looking for some good links to address this problem and repair procedures but no luck as yet.
I have a '99 Volvo XC V70 with turbo. The right rear and right front calipers are sticking.
View 6 RepliesI've replaced the front brakes twice now on my 2004 2.4L Manual Santa Fe.
Each time the dealership has commented on some excessive rusting of the calipers, and this last time around one had actually seized and they had to cut it off.
When I got brand new ones put on I noticed they were nice an shiny silver. Within 3 weeks there were full rusted...and still are. I don't get it??
2004 Santa Fe .... Is it possible something is dripping from somewhere that is caused this premature rusting?
Tons of information on this and its possible. What? I'm still learning the search feature.
View 1 RepliesI have a 2005 F250 & both front calipers are locking up. I have replaced the front pads, no change, my mechanic installed a new master cylinder. No lockup for about two weeks until today. Front calibers are locking up again.
View 1 RepliesHeard clunk (technicdal term) noise when you are in reverse and press the brake pedal. It is coming from the front end/brake area. I did not see a service bulletin for this.
View 10 RepliesI have the standard Audio (not Mark Levison) and want a little more mid and highs out of the side door speakers. I've already maxed out the audio settings for treble and the dash speakers are doing their job to my taste. I just think the side speakers can do just a bit more.
I don't want to replace the head unit, ad additional amplification, equalizer, nor any custom fabrication, at least just not yet. Thought starting with the door speakers would be a 1st step.
I'm presuming the FRONT door speakers are 6 1/2" (at least the mounting holes) so a common 6 1/2" aftermarket speaker would work. Just swap out. Correct? I'm thinking of something like the Infinity 6502ix co-axials with adjustable tweeters for all four doors.