intermittent dragging brakes

[Daniel John]

My front brakes are dragging occasionally. Most of the time they're fine, but at times is like they don't totally release. They get hot and start grabbing and making the truck shake. It's happend a couple times and I slowed way down to limp the truck home. After a couple miles they release again. Sometimes it take a while and somtimes its almost right away. I put new calipers on a couple hundred miles ago so I don't think its that. Maybe a bad master cylinder? What do you guys think?

 

[Philip]

Is this both sides dragging or just one side?



When you replaced the calipers did you clean up and antisieze the slides they mount on?



Did you replace the rubber hoses to the calipers? <-- These are my guess on the problem. I have seen old hoses go bad inside and block the return fluid flow and cause this type intermittent problem.

 

[jtwcummins]

The biggest problem is not doing a good job of cleaning and greasing when replacing calipers. Remove them and clean the mounting and then use a fine sandpaper, clean again w/brake cleaner and use a good synthetic brake grease. Clean and grease the mounting bolts also. The calipers have a very bad habit of binding. If you almost polish the sliding surfaces and use a good grease you should be able to go a year w/o doing it again.

 

[Daniel John]

I did clean and put brake grease on both calipers. Both sides are dragging ,equally I think, as the truck doesn't pull to one side. That makes me think the calipers probably aren't sticking. Maybe I'll try replacing the rubber hoses, but it does seem unlikely that both sides would go bad at once.

 

[jtwcummins]

rubber hoses could be problem, replaced on my 97 with hoses from egr perfomance brakes. Their upgrade for the front disks were the best money spent on my truck. Absolutely no more dragging or pulling and good solid peddle. I used a die grinder with 3m pads to clean the caliper sliding surfaces but have had success using sandpaper. EGR has the only grease for brakes that has really worked for me.