Problem with front brakes

A couple years ago I had a problem with my driver side break caliper over heating. I think it stuck shut when going down a mountain road following some guy in buick that rode his brakes the whole way down the mountain. I pulled over and took the wheel off and let the caliper cool down and was on my way with no problems, until the other day.

I was drivin on the highway around DC in pretty heavy traffic when I noticed my jeep was pulling real hard to the right. Then I noticed some smoke comming form the driver side wheel and the wheel was:firedevil as hell. I wasen't to far from where I came from so I turned around and parked it. After it cooled down it was fine. So my question is how can I check to see if my caliper is bad, and can i rebuild it or should I just get a new one or do both at the same time?

personally I'd do both, new. Better to be safe than sorry

I have had some similar problems on calipers. However, not on my XJ. It appears that at times the caliper can develop some type of ridge on the piston so that it grabs when teh brkes are applied but does not let it back off. Perhaps, you heated the caliper enough so the metal expanded jsut enough to stick adn when it cooled it was able to return? Like others, I would suggest rebuilding / replacing both calipers. Not very expensive.
BSD

I had that problem last week and it turned out to be a bad hose. the liner inside collapsed and would let pressure through to the caliper but not back.

Thanks for the answers. I'm just gonna get two new calipers and some braided brake lines, I already upgraded to slotted rotors and hawk pads a few months ago so that should fininsh the front end's brakes.

wildcar said:

Thanks for the answers. I'm just gonna get two new calipers and some braided brake lines, I already upgraded to slotted rotors and hawk pads a few months ago so that should fininsh the front end's brakes.

Click to expand...

Thats your best bet right there. Calipers can also sometimes lock up from the piston starting to seize up from rust (condensation in brake fluid)or piston over extending.

When you replace the calipers, check the slides that the pads ride on for notches or grooves. A notch can cause the pads to hangup and not properly release. You can file or grind out minor notches. Real bad notches can be fixed by adding material with a welder and grinding back to shape.