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Brake pull - caliper issue?

Jeepguy03

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Connecticut
2000 XJ - 174k miles

Last night I changed the rotors and pads on the Jeep. They were working fine, but were grinding and near the end of their life. Upon inspection, the pad wear was even on both sides. 2 years ago, I had a pull to the driver side when heavy braking (down hill at higher speeds). I replaced the calipers (Black magic) and the front brake hoses. The brake fluid is fairly clean.

While replacing the rotors and pads last night, I noticed that the caliper pistons seemed tougher than normal to compress with the C-clamp, mainly the passenger side. I put everything back together, and now have a pretty severe driver side pull under ALL braking. Could the caliper on the passenger side be shot already? I used silicone grease on the slide pins and they seemed fine. I also bled the brakes to be sure.
 
Tough compression could be a bad rubber hose too -- The hose is collapsed, not allowing fluid to get through

Could also be a bad caliper -- If it worked before the brake job and doesn't work now you could have easily damaged it during compression of the piston -- certainly not out of the question that the piston didn't compress evenly

If you open the bleed on the passenger side does fluid come out?

Could also be just something bound up on that side -- everything go back together smoothly?
 
Tough compression could be a bad rubber hose too -- The hose is collapsed, not allowing fluid to get through

Could also be a bad caliper -- If it worked before the brake job and doesn't work now you could have easily damaged it during compression of the piston -- certainly not out of the question that the piston didn't compress evenly

If you open the bleed on the passenger side does fluid come out?

Could also be just something bound up on that side -- everything go back together smoothly?

Everything went together smoothly. I bled the brakes by having a family member press the pedal while cracking the valve and fluid came out fine. Should I try cracking it open to see if fluid drips out without pressure from the pedal applied? The hoses are only 2 years old and look fine, although I know that isn't really a good indicator of inside condition.
 
They are probably OK if they pass fluid easily while bleeding

Most likely damaged the caliper while forcing piston back -- it happened to me once on a Monte Carlo -- can't explain why it happened -- I've done dozens of brake jobs with only that one going wrong

Sounds like you need to change the caliper
 
Last night I changed the calipers and front brake hoses. Bled the brakes and greased the slides. The brakes definitely feel a lot better. It is hard to tell if the pull is 100% gone mainly because there doesn't seem to be any straight roads where I live. It is definitely improved though. My alignment also hasn't been done in awhile, so even though the Jeep drives straight down the road that might play into it also.
 
another common issue is where the pads sit on the knuckle can actually get little notches worn in which then causes the pad to sit in one place all the time and can mimic a bad caliper
 
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