Ford - Explorer :: Left Front Brake Caliper Locked Up
Jul 12, 2013
My teenage son just bought his first car, a 1991 Ford Explorer XLT 2-wheel drive. I had it checked out by our mechanic before I let him shell out the money, and everything seemed OK. It's the prototypical low-mileage car (127k actual, confirmed by Carfax) owned by a little old man who took good care of it (stack of service records a foot high) and didn't drive it very much.
Earlier this week ... he'd driven it for about two weeks with no issues ... the left front brake caliper locked up on it, to the point where it heated up enormously, the pads and rotors got so hot they were discolored and some transmission fluid got blown out by the strain.
He took it to our regular mechanic, great guy who we've used for years and has worked magic with our cars, he got into it and he diagnosed the problem as ... I hope I'm explaining it right ... a little pin or piston or something in the caliper was upside down. He put it back in the right way, and everything seemed to be OK, although he said my son would probably end up needing a brake job sooner than later because of the way the pad got ground down.
FYI, master cylinder is full of fluid, our mechanic couldn't see any leaks anywhere. Although when we took the car to the mechanic, my son tried to back it up to get a better angle at getting into the service bay, and the pedal went to the floor.
Fast forward two days, and danged if the same thing didn't happen with the right front caliper, seized up although he didn't get it as hot as the other time, parked it a lot quicker. And of course it happens on Friday going into the weekend, when our mechanic isn't working, he won't be able to do anything until Monday, which leaves us scrambling trying to get everyone to work, etc., down one car.
Doing a little online homework ... which we probably should've done before my son made this purchase ... I'm seeing a lot of brake issues with '91 Explorers. I asked my mechanic if he thought there was some ABS-related problem here and he said he didn't think so.
I will say that the car apparently sat undriven for a long time, which I know can unleash a lot of issues. What might be going on here? Do we just need to go ahead and replace the calipers, any hoses, etc., as preventive maintenance?
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About a year ago, I had my right rear brake caliper lock up on my F350 dually. The shop said it can happen and replaced both rear calipers. Last week I started to hear something from the rear and within less than a a few days, before I could get to a shop the noise increased and when I looked the rotor had been gouged on the right rear.
I cannot see the left rear rotor to compare as the wheels don't line up on that side to see through. So my question is this. Could it be the caliper failure was a symptom and not the cause. Maybe a proportion valve or something that could affect the pressure on that one wheel.
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My buddy has been having a strange problem with his 275,000 mile 2003 F150 2wd. The right side caliper will lock up out of the blue and will not release for anything. We put 3 news calipers on it within a 4 week period thinking that we had a defective one but no change. I am thinking either a bad brake line or, more likely, the front abs block...
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Yesterday, I noticed that my right front brake caliper seemed to be sticking. This morning I jacked up the front end, and could barely turn the right front wheel when it was off the ground. So, I have concluded that that caliper is sticking. So, here is the question(s): what is the best way to repair this (new caliper, rebuilt caliper, or rebuild it myself), do I need to do both sides the same or can I just do the one that is acting up, and should I expect to pay. I have some mechanical ability, but that Haynes manual doesn't make too much sense to me. Getting it professionally repaired is extremely inconvenient, I need to be back at school (300 miles away) Tuesday evening, and probably couldn't get it in to get it done before then.
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Having a problem with calipers again/still seems like always. Replaced all calipers twice in 86K miles on a 2000 f250 crew 4x4 because of stuck calipers. Replaced brake hoses and all hard lines in the rear about 2 years ago. My problem now is the left front caliper is not squeezing hard enough to stop the truck evenly. (pulls to the right) The rotor had some rust from sitting and after driving a for a while the rust is not completely gone as you would expect. Replaced caliper bled a couple of times. Caliper looks to be getting pressure enough to bleed and can see it move when brakes applied when engine not running. I don't have experience with Proportioning Valves but do you think that is the problem and how do I fix it?
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2000 Ranger, see my sig.
Just had to swap out the pads on my truck yesterday. The pedal was pretty mushy and I was getting shaking in the steering wheel when the brakes got warm. Shaking wasn't all the time, only after they had been used quite a bit - say after city use and the brakes had to be applied suddenly. So I popped off the tires and swapped out the pads and replaced the brake fluid - flushed it.
On the driver side front, the pads barely had any real wear and the anti-rattle clip was all messed up. It was installed properly, but it looked like the pads had smashed into it. The rotor appeared to be warped, or at least out of round - but just barely. You could see it wobble slightly in one spot if you spun the hub with the caliper removed. The caliper itself was sticking slightly.
I didn't see any evidence of damage, the brakes flushed just fine although the fluid was incredibly dirty (because I haven't done it in a long while). On the passenger side front, the pads were worn down to the level I would have expected given the mileage. The wear was even.
My question ultimately is this - is the out of round hub the culprit here? Might there be something else going on like a caliper problem? Ultimately I plan on having the rotors surfaced - one of them certainly needs it and with new pads I might as well do it anyway.
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2001 F250 SD diesel. Brakes have been working fine with no pulling. They just started to squeal recently so I knew it was time for some new pads.
I'm having a problem that seems to plague me often when I try to replace disc brake pads. I can't get the twin pistons to go back in to allow room to get the new, thicker pads in.
I unscrewed the cap to the master cylinder and used a spreading tool (that came in a brake kit from Advance Auto Parts) to compress the pistons. No movement.
I put a lot of force on it. No piston movement.
I unscrewed the bleeder screw and tried again. No movement.
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I read a reference to the front brake caliper bracket bolts being one time use torque to yield and must be replaced every time they are loosened. Is this true?
This is on my 06 F-350 in my Sig.
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I know this has been talked about many times and how to solve the issue but thought I would ask some other questions too. Earlier in the summer, I did grease the slider pins as preventative maintenance. I don't drive my truck all that much and when I used it yesterday, (about 30 minute drive) I came home to burning brake smell. I'm wondering if enough heat would cause the caliper to go bad? Should I just grease the pins again or change out some parts?
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03 f350 4x4. New front calipers and pads.
Wondering if there's a 'trick' to getting the front brake pads into the caliper . Those damn springs kept popping out. I'd get three of the four ends into place in the pad holes then one would pop out while I'm trying to get the fourth in.
After about a hour of trying every different way that I could think of, another set of hands came by and with four hands holding things in place, it finally did the trick.
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I have had it to 2 Ford dealerships, the first could not get the symptom to occur on a test drive and told me there was nothing they could do because they did not now what to look at.
The dealer I bought it from got it to act up, replaced the IWE 2 weeks ago and 3 days later was still doing same thing. My wife dropped the truck at the dealer again Weds.morning, she told them it did it on the way there. I called at 4:30 to check and they said they drove it 2 times and it did not act up.
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My right front brake caliper is frozen and I cannot turn the tire. This happened about a month ago and I went to Autozone and they gave me a new caliper, rotor and brakes, under warranty, and now the caliper is frozen again and I cannot turn the tire when jacked up. It seems to release after a period of time. I am not sure if it has a proportioning valve for the front brakes, but the driver side wheel turns freely and is not stuck.
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2005 Toyota Solara my front driver side caliper was sticking and heating up a couple months ago... replaced the caliper and the rotor... still had the same problem. I would drive it, it got hot and stuck, after I parked for a little while it slowly released. Talked to a couple of mechanics and they both said undoubtedly I had a bad flex hose and it was collapsing with pressure and then will release... I changed the flex hose and flushed the fluid and it was immediately fixed...no problems.
Drove the car for a month, went to South Carolina and back and then a couple days ago the same thing started happening. Talked to a mechanic, he told me that the new caliper may have gotten fried from over heating before I changed the flex hose... Got a new caliper today (warranty) exchange... changed it out and still have the same problem. When it sticks I can release the pressure by opening the bleeder valve so it seems like the flex hose issue again... my only thought now is maybe the new flex hose is a bad one and someone mentioned the proportioning valve.
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I have a 92 Park Ave and the right front brake caliper will squeeze then release pressure even while holding the brake pedal down, which does not go to the floor, the left front brake is doing most of the stopping. I have bleed that caliper but still same problem. Is the ABS module proportioning wrong? By the way, the brake pads are brand new.
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My 2004 Toyota Highlander with 84K miles has been diagnosed with a seized front driver side brake caliper with worn brake pad (1/32). I had recall work done a few days ago at the dealership and this was discovered afterward during the "complimentary" multi-point check-up. - You know, the long laundry list of recommended work they try to sell you on. Of course the brake work is actually necessary.
Since the vehicle was just inspected 2 months ago at our local shop, my husband suggested I take it back there to verify the diagnosis and see what that mechanic would recommend. That mechanic confirmed and showed me the seized caliper/worn pad, which, by the way, was functioning well in mid January at inspection, and measured 7/32. This mechanic recommends replacing both calipers, pads, turning rotors. There was no indication of a problem with the RF caliper, but he says it's just a good idea to replace it so we would avoid having another problem in the future.
I want to ask everyone's opinion regarding replacement of just the bad caliper vs. both. Are we getting ripped off as far as the estimate and is the flush necessary? Also, is this issue typical in the first place, and what causes a brake caliper to seize? We've had several other vehicles driven many more miles than my Highlander and never experienced a seized caliper.
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I own an '05 Prerunner with 56k miles. Had the front pads replaced and turned the rotors last Spring.
Now, after sitting for awhile, as I back up the front brakes squeal. (Sounds like a rock in a caliper its so loud.)
Toyota has a TSB to fix this.
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