Rear Brake Oddity

[BJS]

For the past year or so my rear brakes have had problems, they seem to not be working very good and will catch when you stop but will not release until you start rolling again. I know this because I hear the clunk of the brakes releasing. So in good logical process I figured that they needed adjusting just like drum brakes always do. So that didn't really fix anything. So I replaced the rear brake shoes, springs, adjusters & wheel cylinders and changed the brake fluid. No change.

Next course of action was to check for a restriction logical place is the flex line to the rear axle so a new one went on. No help. Next was the proportioning/metering valve on the rear port of the master cylinder which left me with the same thing.

Anyone have any other ideas or suggestions on how to fix this other than to convert to rear discs. Oh and I do have a new master cylinder too.

 

[Zookie400]

check the park brake and make sure its letting off all the way. simetimes the linkage/cables rot up nice and even though the pedal pops all the way up, they are still holding the brakes on.

 

[Patrick Feeley]

Not that it would cause your problem, make sure that the shoes are in the correct position (the "longer" friction surface is towards the rear on each wheel). I'd also look hard at the parking brake cables. Cheers!

 

[BJS]

hadn't thought about the parking brake cables I'll give them a good inspection and see if they would be the problem.
The shoes are on in the correct manner but thanks for the suggestion.

 

[BJS]

A bit of an update on a very old thread.

I checked the e-brake and the pads to ensure that they were installed correctly and all checked out fine.

I decided that I'd have to live with it until something either broke or stuck so I could actually target the problem.


Time passes and I notice that the rear brakes seem to be not engaging at the same time as the front brakes. so I crack back into the rear brake setup and all appears to be good wheel cylinders were not leaking (they were about 1 yr old so they shouldn't be) so I figured that they were just out of adjustment so I adjusted them correctly and that helped, but didn't fix the problem.

I was confient that there was no problem with the rear brake system unless the rear ABS module was messing up and causing freakish problems so I mentally made plans to make a temp bypass hose to see if the problem was solved. (never got there)

So I'm driving around and begin to notice a clicking noise when I'm turning right, odd my entire front end is new... are the front hubs locked and the shafts hitting the grease nipples for the balljoints.... can't be I've been in 4wd and though the clearance is tight it's not that tight.... hubs were unlocked.... ok when I get home I'll jack it up and see if I can make it do it there


When I get home I jack up the driver's wheel and give it a spin and it only makes it about 1/2 revolution from where I let go ..... dag nabbit front calipers are not retracting like they are supposed to..

So I yanked off the caliper and checked the pads & the inner surface of the rotor for damage to see what all I was going to have to replace. The rotors which were new about 2 yrs ago look great as do the pads which had not gotten crystallized yet. Off to by new front calipers.

After installing the new calipers during the early bands of Tropical storm Fay and a quick test drive seemed to say that I'd solved my problem. The rear brakes were not sticking any more like they were a week before and the brakes (front & rear) engage simultaneously. Oh and the RABS doesn't work at all I locked up all 4 on purpose on a wet road to check.

Long story short - replace front calipers to fix rear brake draging issue. Who would have thought.


On the bright side I have essentially a new brake system minus front flex hoses and abs actuator.

 

[Zookie400]

interesting....i fixed a pulsing pedal and bouncing rear end with front rotors, after chasing the rear brakes around in circles for 6 months.