Hi everyone,

First time poster and a owner of a new-to-me '02 S-Type 3.0, love the car so far! Previous owner bought front pads and rotors (Autozone, not happy with the brand but that's a different story), installed them and found the front calipers had their piston dust boots melted on both sides, even had the friction material on one pad per side come off the backing plate!

Has anyone else run into this? I'm going to order some reman front calipers since they were probably overheated and boiled the brake fluid, also going to get new rubber brake lines. I think the rear brakes might be doing all the braking, the driver's side rear rotor has a tinge of blue from heat near the hub.

Also it seems like a light growling sound comes from the front when coming to a stop, don't know if it's from a dragging caliper or if the hub bearings are noisy; anyone else experience this?

Thanks in advance!

Andrew

 

It sounds like your brakes had some serious abuse.
Chances are the bearings may have been toasted, I'd at least check and relube them when you are doing the brakes.

 

Welcome and Wow! That's.... unique? There may be a rebuild kit but I guess used calipers will be readily available.

 

Welcome to the forum! Some of us are nice, most of the time.

Creating enough heat to melt the boots could only have been done with a huge amount of friction over a period of time- possibly by stopping the car repeatedly at the limit of the ABS system. Other than somebody playing boy racer, an alternative explanation would be partially seized calipers either from the pistons not being able to retract or the caliper not being able to slide laterally on it's pins. I bet it's the latter.

I'd be curious to see what the rotor surfaces look like, especially the backsides.

For the rear rotor, make sure the parking brake is not dragging, the mechanism can partially seize from corrosion but this can easily be determined and corrected accordingly.

I'd get the brakes sorted first before worrying about bearings- possibly examining the back sides of the front rotors will reveal the source of the growling.

 

Everyone,

Thanks for the welcoming and the responses.

Mikey- The inside of both front rotors were heavily scored compared to the outers, think the same could be said for the rears. What would be the easy way to check/adjust if the parking brake is dragging?

Andrew

 

Bingo- the transversal pins are/were seized inside the calipers causing the pad to remain in contact with the rotor surface even with the pedal released. This was the source of heat that melted the boots.

For the P-brake, ensure that the cable itself releases at the caliper end, and that the lever it attaches to returns under it's own spring pressure to the full released position. If it's stuck, some lubrication and manipulation of the lever might get it working freely again. Any dragging will be obvious as soon as the wheel is up in the air. My car is a 2003 with the electronic brake, 2002 and earlier have a traditional manually-activated cable arrangement. The JTIS will have the adjustment procedure for this.

 

Mikey,

I don't think the slide pins were siezed, however, the front rotors had a lot of corrosion on the inside of the hub which could have made its way into the pistons. I'm going to order a set of reman calipers and new brake hoses, install and bleed the entire system; hope it's the fix! If not, it's peace of mind The parking brake seems to work with no problems and doesnt act like it's dragging, I'll have a good look when I'm bleeding the brakes.

Thanks again for everyone's help!