Brakes Dragging!

[BigPinoyHunk]

i wanted to go here to see if somebody else has some experience before i start browsing to other forums.

my wife's daily driver is a 2007 mustang gt and it has 70k miles on it. it drives mostly all highway. as of late, when my wife gets home or getting to work (50 miles one way) she says her brakes are pretty hot and she says she could smell some of the smell from the rotor area. i never changed her brakes or bled them so i bled them yesterday. all the pads have good thickness to them so i don't think its the brakes quite yet but who knows. what could be possibly making the brakes get hot on a 50 mile drive?

i hope its not something expensive. however, she did say that the brake pedal feels firmer but now she is saying that the brakes seemed warmer this morning after she got to work.

any ideas fellas?

 

[caspianwendell]

I had that problem on my f150. I drove it until the rear brakes would lock up at slow speeds (I thought it was anti-lock cause the shoes were 2 months old) finally tore it down and found cracks in the lining of the cheap brakes I bought, replaced them with wagners and that fixed it. did the brakes bleed easy or was it a slow stream?

 

[MotoArts]

Only one caliper, or all 4?

I've had singles stick due to rusted caliper pistons. They will pit either between the dust seal and caliper, or inside between the piston and body.

Usually the under seal rust will show after installing new pads, since the rusty portion gets pushed back into the caliper.

You may be able to "temporarily" unstick the offender by compressing the piston, then pumping it back up. It is NOT a fix, only a check.

A rusty or stuck E-brake cable or rear caliper lever may be a culprit, too.

Check caliper pins and ways for galling/binding also. I always brakleen them out, wire wheel the rust on the iron parts (depending on the caliper/bracket style) and lube with regular anti seize.

Rust a regular occurrence here in the Eastern Rust Belt...

Whatever you do, flush the brake system completely. Brake fluid cannot ever be TOO clean, or too new. Suck the master cylinder dry, mop out the funk on the bottom, refill with fresh sauce and bleed till clean. Fluid is NOT lifetime, and continually absorbs moisture.

Six-plus years is old in fluid speak. If it's anything but light beer colored, it's toast. Dark beer or coffee is way past due.

It will boil under extreme use when old. Had it happen while roadracing street bikes back in the day. Reached for a big handful of front brake to get me from 125-ish down to 50-ish before a sharp left hander, and lever went to the bar...

Talk about an orfice-puckering experience...

 

[BigPinoyHunk]

I had that problem on my f150. I drove it until the rear brakes would lock up at slow speeds (I thought it was anti-lock cause the shoes were 2 months old) finally tore it down and found cracks in the lining of the cheap brakes I bought, replaced them with wagners and that fixed it. did the brakes bleed easy or was it a slow stream?

brakes are still OEM ones and when i bled the brakes, it was a slow stream. however i did tell my wife to only let the brake pedal go down like 2-3 inches.

Only one caliper, or all 4?

I've had singles stick due to rusted caliper pistons. They will pit either between the dust seal and caliper, or inside between the piston and body.

Usually the under seal rust will show after installing new pads, since the rusty portion gets pushed back into the caliper.

You may be able to "temporarily" unstick the offender by compressing the piston, then pumping it back up. It is NOT a fix, only a check.

A rusty or stuck E-brake cable or rear caliper lever may be a culprit, too.

Check caliper pins and ways for galling/binding also. I always brakleen them out, wire wheel the rust on the iron parts (depending on the caliper/bracket style) and lube with regular anti seize.

Rust a regular occurrence here in the Eastern Rust Belt...

Whatever you do, flush the brake system completely. Brake fluid cannot ever be TOO clean, or too new. Suck the master cylinder dry, mop out the funk on the bottom, refill with fresh sauce and bleed till clean. Fluid is NOT lifetime, and continually absorbs moisture.

Six-plus years is old in fluid speak. If it's anything but light beer colored, it's toast. Dark beer or coffee is way past due.

It will boil under extreme use when old. Had it happen while roadracing street bikes back in the day. Reached for a big handful of front brake to get me from 125-ish down to 50-ish before a sharp left hander, and lever went to the bar...

Talk about an orfice-puckering experience...

it feels like all the brakes are getting hot but she says its mainly the rears that smell.

the fluid from yesterday did look like a darker beer color but i didn't completely flush it cuz i didn't have enough fluid to replace it with so i did only what i could.

once my mach 1 is up and running again, i need to start looking at redoing the brakes completely. change pads and resurface rotors.

i got a reverse bleeder, hopefully the bleeders will allow it. my cobra brakes wouldn't allow me to reverse bleed.

 

[MotoArts]

If it's obstruction in the calipers (rust, scum ring, etc.), just get new/rebuilt units.

They're waaaay too cheap not to, considering the job that they do.

And, flushing with new fluid won't fix anything. It will help keep new rust and funk from growing. Nobody (hardly anybody) ever flushes brake fluid. They just don't think about it. But I do.

IMO, if you can smell brake stank at this point, I wouldn't drive it. It's already too late. It will only lead to a world of hate, sooner than later.

Good luck, hope it's something simple to diagnose.

 

[72HCODE]

it sounds like the calipers have rusted up. I had the same problem on a Mitsubishi when i took the caliper off the piston was rusted to the point you could see the metal layers de-laminating and the entire thing was full of rust in the hollow center.

I bought new calipers, tossed the old and never looked back, problem gone.

 

[caspianwendell]

I wouldn't think in Oxnard CA your calipers would be that rusted on such a late model car that is driven that far daily but I have been wrong before...today...you should be able to compress the piston and the fluid return to the master with some resistance by means of a large channel lock plier, or c-clamp. Jack the car up, bleed one wheel at a time and note the resistance of the wheel when you turn it by hand (should unlock and have just a hint of rub from the brake pad) if both sides are locking i would look for a blockage, or master problem. if only one wheel is the problem I would change the caliper and rubber line (I have seen the inside of the lines collapse on the return and not let the fluid pass) and can be a devil to figure out if you have never been through it.

 

[BigPinoyHunk]

i still have exhaust to install on the mach 1 but my wife is more important. so this weekend i will plan on replacing the pads and machine the rotors or at least look at them. i will look further at the lines for possible collapsing. i'll also jack up the whole car and see if i can rotate the wheels at all.

i don't live in an area where rust is a big deal unless you are near the beach (which i'm not and i live in sacramento) and it sits for long periods of time outside. the car is garaged daily.

i hope its a simple fix.

 

[caspianwendell]

If the interior lining is collapsed in the brake line you will not see it...you just have to deduce

 

[BigPinoyHunk]

If the interior lining is collapsed in the brake line you will not see it...you just have to deduce

i will look further, however the thing is that its doing all the brakes and not just one. i'm afraid its the MC.

 

[caspianwendell]

Does it have 4 wheel anti-lock? If all 4 are not releasing I would start with the master

 

[BigPinoyHunk]

Does it have 4 wheel anti-lock? If all 4 are not releasing I would start with the master

yes, i would think a a 07 gt mustang would have it.

 

[MotoArts]

If the interior lining is collapsed in the brake line you will not see it...you just have to deduce

i will look further, however the thing is that its doing all the brakes and not just one. i'm afraid its the MC.

Yep, I've seen all kinds of crazy head scratching stuff happen to brake systems.

Had a Fiero GT back in the day that, I assume, had bad flex lines. I had replaced EVERY component, one at a time, and could not get a solid pedal. Every component aside from the flex lines.

Wasted over a gallon of fluid on that lump.

It had good pedal before I "fixed" it.

Sold the car that way.

Years later I learned of hoses delaminating/clogging.

The rust/scum can be a factor in your MC.

The bike I spoke of had under 10K on it. It spent all of its life in a garage, hadn't been crashed or Mickey Moused with in any way.

Fluid absorbs water through the flex lines and filler cap gasket, and gets a big gulp of H2O every time the cap is opened. That's what gets the floaties and corrosion growing inside; not necessarily a factor regarding where the car resides. It can happen in any region.

 

[BigPinoyHunk]

after driving the car to work myself one day and i cannot tell/feel if the brakes are dragging cuz if they were coming to a stop would be easy. i've had a vehicle with dragging brakes and the entire wheel and tire gets hot too and its hard to accelerate and easy to stop. i did smell a slight burning smell however.

i put the car on jack stands friday night right after work and all the wheel move very freely with no effort. i started looking under the car for a few items and i find that a super log piece of plastic is wrapped all the way around the driveline and ends at the back universal joint. the burning smell haves to be coming from that plastic. i started laughing, i still proceeded to finish out the brake flush and the brakes work fine and all the brake pads are all still thick.

i went ahead and changed the fuel filter since it was never done on a 70k car. the factory filter was crushed for some reason and i'm glad they changed the lines compared to the 90 vehicles where u need special tools to take them out. this set up is so much easier. also changed the oil since it was due in 300 miles.

and of course, its getting hot now so the 20 inch wheels went back on.

 

[caspianwendell]

Stuff like that happens sometimes...LOL