Rear Brakes 03 5.4 expy

[moofish75]

Anyone know why my rear brakes would go out before my front? My pads have wore away so much that the warning bar has broken off. The rotor on the driver side is grooved big time. My parking brake works fine, and we haven't been driving with it on.

Someone suggested that my calipers may be frozen??? Any thoughts, ideas?

Thanks for the help.

 

[rwinch]

One of my first questions is wether the Expy had been stopping OK before you noticed this? The reason I ask is:

- Either, the Front Calipers were not working, in which case the Expy would have a NOTICABLE increase in stopping distance (this is because the front rotors do 70+% of the stopping work due to weight transfer to the front during stopping. This is why the front rotors are larger and ventilated.)

- Or the Rear Calipers were frozen, OR, the parking brake was not fully disengaging, which is my guess. The rear parking brake is cable actuated, and may get stuck by any number of reasons. The pedal may feel like it was releasing the brakes, but unless you get under the Expy and see for yourself, you might never know.

I would first check the parking brake cable by having someone engage and disengage the parking brake while you are under the truck looking at the cable. You could even jack up the rear and see if the wheels turn freely with it off, and are locked when it is on. My guess is that this is the problem, and you will have to service/replace the cable.

If it is not the cable, and the truck was stopping OK, then rebuild/replace the rear calipers. If the Expy was not stopping well, the front calipers need to be serviced.

In any case, it seems you need new rear rotors, buy them in pairs (try Brembo rotors), new pads, and bleed the system well.

Hope this helps.

 

[moofish75]

Thanks for the info.

My front brakes are working very well. They have suprisingly quite a bit of pad left (especially b/c the truck had 46,000 miles on it).

Someone suggested that my wife may of had the parking brake on when she was driving it. This prompted me to call the dealership and ask them about it. They told me that the emergency brake has it's own brake pad on the backside of the rotor?? Does that make sense?

I will try the jacking the rear end up tomorrow night.

I am going to replace all 4 pads regardless. My question is, should I replace the front rotors? They look farily decent. The top of the rotor has a bit of a lip on it. Or do I need to just turn them to take the lip off?

BTW, I grabbed the one remaining squeaker bar from the pad with a pair of plyers and finished breaking it off. Serves no further purpose since I know that they are shot now.

 

[rwinch]

The question was, does the Expy stop well? If the front calipers were not working, of course you would have a good deal of pad left! If the Expy stops well, does not veer to one side or another, etc., then the fron calipers are probably not the problem.

I am not sure of your '03, but my '98 does not have another pad for the parking brake, a least not one I can descern from the manuals I have.

If you have eliminated the front calipers, I would not mess with them unless you have time on your hands. From what you say, the pads and rotors are OK, save that for later.

Before you start throwing money at the Expy, detremine what the problem is.

Let us know what you find out with the Parking Brake Cable.

 

[rwinch]

Update:

I found the section in my manual about the parking brake, and it says that I have a DRUM brake system, which resides inside of the DISC brake hub????

I have to check this out!!! Seems weird, especially since I have been all other these areas (but never changed the brake pads myself), and never saw this!

I will report back tomorrow on what I see.

 

[moofish75]

No problems stopping at all. So you're probably right about the front calipers. Drum brake with disc brake hub??? Hmmm... Sounds interesting. If that's the case (I'll wait to hear from you) then I will need to make sure that I'm getting the right parts once the problem has been diagnosed.

I am hoping that the it's as simple as my wife driving with the parking brake on. But with my luck, It'll be require a full over haul. Hopefully not though.

Depending on what you come back with and if my brake cable is working, I will probably take it to have someone give me an inspection. I'll do the work myself, but, you're right, I don't want to throw money at it when the true root cause hasn't been diagnosed.

 

[moofish75]

Took the bad boy into NTB today to have it evaluated. As fate would have it, I picked up a screw in my tire and noticed it in the parking lot. Jeez! Got that fixed there. Anyway, they could see no reason other than normal wear and tear on the pads. The front ones are about shot, as I expected, but the rear were shot. I guess the emergency brake is behind the rotor, and presses against an drum? So the emergency brake has been ruled out. The calipers work fine. I guess that my car brakes from the rear and front the same. Sound interesting. I may take it to the dealer for a 2nd opinion, but that one will cost $25 or so. This trip was meant to be free to NTB, but had to pay to have the tire patched. I also had them do a free alignment check. Guess what, I was also out of alignment. I could see the wear on the tire that they mounted backwards (which I made them correct). So I got the beast aligned today. My free trip cost me like $108 or so, 3 hours later. Oh yeah, my estimate they gave me to fix the truck, including 2 sets of pads, 4 rotors, flush and fill of the brake line, labor and shop costs.............just over $1000!!!!! They also said that these rotors are turnable if they can get them off. They tend to cease on the truck and have to be broken off in pieces.

In case you were wondering, I have an order in to get rotors and pads. I can do it for about 1/3 the cost, which I'm going to do this weekend.

 

[rwinch]

I would check a little more. I have been told by a reliable source that that there is (at least on my '98) a drum brake that is hiding underneath the rear drum rotor for the emergency brake.

That would rule out a problem with the emergency brake ruining your disc brake pads and rotors.

I do not understand the evaluation that the front pads/rotors are shot. You said they were fine. This is a simple test of pad thickness, rotor thickness and rotor run out (warp).

In this case, if you are mechanically inclined, I would do this myself.

Regarding the rotors, they do tend to seize. Many have reported major issues with removing them. I have not. When replacing them, liberally apply a good anti-seize to the contacting surfaces to prevent this from happening again.

Oh, and by they way, it looks like I will be servicing my emergency stop brakes soon.....now that I know where they are!

 

[monsta]

Originally posted by rwinch
I have been told by a reliable source that that there is (at least on my '98) a drum brake that is hiding underneath the rear drum rotor for the emergency brake.

Here's another one. There are, in fact, parking brake drums under the rotor. I've seen 'em myself.!

 

[moofish75]

I haven't had the time to get back and post since my I did the work on the brakes.

I replaced all 4 rotors and 2 axels worth of pads with Rabestos. Everything is running all good again. Since the brakes are all new, there is a bit of braking in to implement though.

The front rotors were a bit stubborn to get off, but they finally did with a whole can of PB anti-seize. (I think that's what its called). I took the original factory front rotors in to see if they could be turned, but they were on the brink of throw-aways. I said F it and replaced all of them.

I did the brakes for about $360 myself. NTB wanted a grand to do it. Jeez.

I also treated myself to a K&N cold air performance injector kit for about $250 from JEGS. I love it. Easy installation. Big time performance boost. Haven't been able to see if the MPG has gone up or not yet since it's so new.

I can confirm with Ken, the 03 expy has the drum emergency brake behind the rear rotor. The rotor actually fits over top of the drum assembly and the emergency pads press against the rotor. Pretty ingenius design.