Brake Troubles

Friday night on my 98xj sport 4.0, the right front brake caliper was not releasing. It wasn't locked, but my wheel and rotor got extremely hot and was smoking a little. I let it sit for a minute, then it rained on it pretty hard for about 10 minutes and all seems fine. What would cause this and do I need to replace the caliper?

Samson04 said:

Friday night on my 98xj sport 4.0, the right front brake caliper was not releasing. It wasn't locked, but my wheel and rotor got extremely hot and was smoking a little. I let it sit for a minute, then it rained on it pretty hard for about 10 minutes and all seems fine. What would cause this and do I need to replace the caliper?

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It may not be a caliper issue. Pull the caliper & pad off & look at the the area the the pads ride against, they have a tenency of wearing a groove, whitch causes the pads to hang up,stick .

Do some inspection on it before throwing money at it. Take the caliper off and the pads. Check the slides and make sure that they are moving freely. While you're at it take some silicone lube or never seize and apply a liberal amount to them and work em in and out. See if that works first before submitting your pocket book to your jeep

Also be sure to check the boots and the condition of the pins that the caliper float on. The boots can wear out and the pins can corrode and cause frozen brakes.

I am definitely going to pull the brakes off and check them when I get home today. I was just unsure if this was something that a caliper does when it is going bad or not. The pads are only a couple of months old.

as everyone else has stated, it may or may not be the caliper. Inspect the condition of the pads to see if you can tell if only one pad or both were dragging.

-If the outer pad was the only one dragging, I'd suspect the caliper mounting pins are not allowing the caliper to easily "float" on them.
-If the inner pad is the only one dragging, I'd suspect either the caliper piston not retracting.
-If both pads are dragging, I'd suspect the brake hose not allowing fluid to return to the master cylinder.

With that said, If the rotor shows and signs of "blueing" or checking/cracking, you have heated things up enough to cause failure of all of these parts in the near future. You may have had one item fail, but the collateral damage might be worse. Good luck.

This might sound a bit daft but, check the adjustment of your brake light switch. My 98 had a case of dragging brakes and I solved it by adjusting the switch.

With the ignition off:

1. Pull up on the brake pedal as hard as you can, you will most likely hear the switch ratchet.
2. Push down on the pedal until you just feel pressure.
3. Adust the switch down to the depressed brake arm, just pull it, leaving an 1/8" gap.
4. Verify the Brake Light is OUT. It will be ON after step one.
5. Verify the brakes have stopped dragging.

Worked on mine, proceedure out of the manual.