have to rebuild front brakes after one siezed. Opinions?

[FireFox31]

Excellent brake system tutorials by cn90:
Rebuild calipers
Parking brakes
Flaring brake lines
Keep air out of the ABS module

Aside from all these, the best tip I read here:
When the calipers are removed, brake fluid will drip from the lines. Prevent this by "closing the valve" in the system. With the calipers installed, press the brake pedal half way, brace it against the steering wheel with a board (mine is 25.5"), open one or two caliper bleeders and catch the fluid which exits from the pressure. Then you can remove the calipers and no fluid will leak from the lines.

I've had brake calipers stuck closed and generate so much heat that heat was transferred through the hub to the wheel and to the tire. I smelled burning tire rubber, making me fear tire air expansion or even a blowout. Do everything you can to get the best quality calipers (stripped and painted or powder coated) or replace them every four years.

[volare]

here was my run with the Falcon's front brakes; many people helped me, maybe some will be of help to you:
99 V70R front brake fun times

because it was my kid's 'learning to drive' car I went with plain old rebuilt calipers from the local, figuring I'd have to replace them sooner than later ANYWAY... whaddya know they're still on there now working fine.

[amblerman]

How hot did it get? Did the rotor glow red? I did that once on my truck, and I'm assuming that's why the unit bearing hub needed to be replaced before the other one.

On the day I noticed this, I was driving normally and applying the brakes in a normal manner. I could smell the burning brakes and could feel the heat from about 1 ft away .

On the drive home, I drove to minimize applying the brakes to avoid having the brakes get locked on.
On the highway, I don't think I tapped the brakes at all (having a manual helps with this). Once off the highway, I still drove to minimize applying the brakes but had to use them occasionally. With minimizing brake usage, here is what the temp differences looked like.
129 = passenger side = working fine.
428 = drivers side = sticking side


I am guessing on the day I first noticed this , the temps could have been twice this. With the temps below I had to hold my hand near the rim to feel it.

even on the first day with the higher temps I did not notice any visual color or glow.

And thanks for all the great replies and suggestions.

temps.png (1.34 MiB) Viewed 2747 times

[abscate]

Those IR tools are much better thn fingertips.

Replace caliper , new pads? , leave rotor

[Eddystone]

Just submitted my own question about overheated brakes. Didn't see this one...

I like the Bosch QuietCast brake pads. I don't like exotic pads that need a lap on the Nurburging to get to operating temperature. The Bosch are smooth, quiet, come with new hardware and are relatively cheap. They are ceramic, but seem to work well.

I've bought two sets of Zimmermann Coated Disc Brake Rotors. I think one set came from FCP and the other I got on Amazon. I have been happy with the Zimmermanns, the part you can see through the wheels does not rust, and they are not expensive.

I feel your pain Amblerman.

[PeteB]

I've used Raybestos professional rotors and pads on probably 10 break jobs over the
last 20 years or so and have been very happy with them. They were also sold under
the NAPA Premium brand in case you need them same day and the price is very
reasonable. I believe that this is still the case.

I've had problems with Cardone caliper rebuilds but they are currently working on our
850. I see that Rock auto has Raybestos rebuilt calipers that I've never tried but might
in the future. I've recently bought Raybestos brand new calipers for two of our cars
but have not yet installed them - price was not bad at all.

The flex hoses have a tiny passage way and while it is rare for them to clog I've had
it happen twice and my neighbor had it happen once. In two of these cases it was so
bad that it would not bleed - no flow as if the bleed screw was still in. We tested by
opening the joint on the other side of the flex hose and sure enough there was flow.

But our 850 rears just had low flow so that the brakes did not release quickly and
dragged.

If you don't find any problem with the caliper, I'd do the hose with a quality brand,
obviously you don't want to use a crap brand. If the rotors are original I'd probably
just do them but you could try the pads and rotors and only change them if you do
the caliper and they don't feel right.

[abscate]

The finger test on the caliper will tell you if it’s corroded to the point of giving trouble. I’m in the cap of seeing 500 corroded calipers for 1 bad brake line

Ymmv

[PeteB]

We had a serious rumbling problem with the brakes that turned out to be mostly a problem
with the rears, but did rotors and pads all around:
viewtopic.php?t=65446

Rear problems, might not be the same brand caliper (ATE) as the S70:
viewtopic.php?t=81876

[foggydogg]

My front brake lines have been seriously cracked on every P80 I've owned, probably from a Professional flat-rate brake job, you know, just let it dangle, it'll be fine.
Generating that much heat may be symptomatic of a stuck caliper piston; I would think the slider would release during a highway blast, unless it is UnGodly stuck. That will become self evident during step one of the scientific method: Direct Observation.
When I'm doing pads, I open the bleeder at that corner when I'm sending the piston home. I always bleed all four corners after, so that's a good start at getting the old out.
Both scot850 and Dr. abscate have discussed bare piston availability, I think the conclusion has always been buying rebuilt is less costly.

[FireFox31]

I searched everywhere for bare pistons and never found them. The best I found were stainless steel pistons for motorcycles. They had small ones for the rear but not large ones for the front. I worry that stainless has different reaction to heat when compared to stock pistons, which may lead to problems the original engineers didn't anticipate. So yes, buy aftermarket rebuilt calipers and replace them every bunch of years.