Hot Front Brakes.....

OK I first discovered that my front brakes where riding all the time after I turned the original rotors and put some new pads on. I checked the rear brakes to discover that they needed to be replaced as well.

So after checkinig the calipers they did not have good movement when they were deeper in the caliper and I felt the rotors were starting to warp.

So I replaced the calipers and rotors. I also sanded and washed to pads to remove any contaminants and hot spots. I also blead the brakes out with fresh fluid and checked the brake lines but everything seemed smooth.

But I still notice that my fron rotors are getting hot. The wheel get warm and the hub part of the rotor(not the braking surface) through the wheel spokes is getting pretty hot. Not burn the skin off hot but can't touch in for more than a second or it hurts. This is just on my short 4 mile drive to work with 4 lights and relatively cool temperatures. My drum on the other hand are very cool.

I'm wondering if anyone out there knows how to check any thing to narrow down what might be causing this?

Did you check to if the pads are able to move freely on their mounting points? If there are grooves there the pads may hang up and cause your brakes to overheat.

chris

When your brakes drag your wheel gets relatively hot not just warm. I think it may be ok.

pete

Yeah the slide rails are smooth. cleaned and lubed with high temp poly grease. So the pads themselves should have no troubel moving.

jeepsrock said:

When your brakes drag your wheel gets relatively hot not just warm. I think it may be ok.

Click to expand...

Unless you drive like a hot-rodder, your brakes should rarely heat up enough to get the wheels noticeably warm. When my Stratus's calipers were seizing, the wheels would get warm, and I'd smell burning brakes occasionally... other than that, I've never had a hot wheel...

On the Stratus, after a time (mine was at 75k miles) the pistons would swell slightly, and would seize inside the bore WHEN HOT. Aka, one good hard stop, and the brakes might not back-off properly... so they get hotter and seize tighter...

Let it set for a few hours, and all was well.

My car did it, and so did a buddy's at work... at about the same mileage.

New calipers were the proper cure. We both chose new cars instead!

The XJ's calipers LOOK awfully similar, at a glance.

Den

Try driving normally for a while, until the brakes reach what you judge an uncomfortable temperature, then stop and quickly jack up a front wheel to see if it's dragging. There might be a problem with the master cylinder or the soft lines. I'm not aware of this being a big problem with Jeeps, but sometimes if the soft lines get cracks or decay inside, they can form flaps that act as a one-way valve, and contribute to brake drag. Remember that the only thing that acts to retract the front pistons is the combination of springiness in the piston seal, and disk runout. It doesn't take much to impede that, especially if you have no disk runout.