Super Duty Rear Brakes

This shot is what is left of my rear rotor. Notice the brake pad backing has pushed out of the caliper on the back side and that the rotor is nearly chewed clean thru on the back side.

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Here is another angle of the same damage.

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Figured Id drop a pic of my son helping me on the repairs.

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Everything removed. I had read on some sites where people were curious what was involved in removing the rear rotor.

  1. Remove the wheel.
  2. Remove the bolts from the caliper that holds it to the brake bracket.
  3. Remove the caliper and the brake pads. Prop it on something to keep from damaging the brake hose whiles its removed.
  4. Pull the bolts out of the brake caliper bracket that holds it to the axle.
  5. Then remove the caliper bracket from the axle.
  6. Then the rotor just slides off. If it doesnt slide you can gently tap it with something to dislodge it.

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Notice the lip around the center of the rotor. That used to be part of the rotor.

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Even a better shot of how thin the back side of the rotor had gotten and the lip on top where it ground the rotor down.

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The dirty piston is the one that blew out. Notice the scoring on it where the piston tried doubling as a brake pad.

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Last but not least. This is whats left of the back pad. Notice the tab thats stuck out the back of it thats holding the pad upright. No I didnt bend that for the pic. Thats what happened to it when the pad shot out of the caliper. This was causing the pedal to kick back when I would back the truck up. Also it would make the entire truck shake violently when backing up. First time it did it I thought I had backed into someone.

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UPDATE : 2-10-2016

I have figured out what is causing this failure as it happened again. The caliper slides on two guide pins. These are the threaded pins that you bolt the caliper to the brake bracket by when installing the caliper. These pins are designed to float in and out of the brake bracket as the brakes are applied or released. What happens is they gum up, corrode or just generally mess up. When this happens the brake caliper no longer “floats” which causes it to drag killing the inner pad pretty fast. The outside pad is usually still in pretty good shape or at least still intact while the inner pad is destroyed.

The solution is kind of simply. When you replace the caliper don’t just buy the caliper. Buy the caliper AND the brake bracket together. This way you get new guide pins and the bracket is machined perfectly for them. I just did this updated repair last week and I will post if it messes up again after this but I think this will solve the problem.

 

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