05 FX4 Brake sticking
01-17-2016, 04:55 AM
#11
I replaced the caliper today....seems to have done the trick. No more brake smell, doesn't seem to be dragging at all. I didn't replace the rotor, since there's no vibration or pulling when braking. I bought pads too but didn't replace them because the existing ones still had a decent amount of life left. Thanks for the tips
I have had three of the FX4 5.4 ltr trucks,
I can tell you one thing, that same thing with the caliper cracking and locking up like yours did, it happened to me on all three trucks. It's your truck, you do what you thinks best.
But, Just so you are aware, every time my caliper collapsed the excess pressure created by the new caliper in the system caused the caliper on the other side to go bad. The problem comes from the material that Ford made the brake calipers from. It's a plastic like white material and they all crack around the same time period from the excessive heating & cooling caused by normal brake heat.
Also, if I were you I would strongly recommend that you replace the brake hose on the caliper that you got red hot. Your extremely lucky the tire didn't either blow out or just catch fire. Also, you might as well go ahead and replace the rotors on both sides front. The one you heated up is warped now. It's going to start to shimmy in your steering wheel when you brake, and only get worse. Also, because of the high temp you got the brake pad, you Aneiled the pad & its backing. It's probably going to just shatter before long. It will shatter when you have to brake hard, so things ain't going to turn out well when that happens.
One other thing, you really need to remove that wheel and inspect the inside area of the tire bead & side wall. If I was I were you, and I say this from, been there, done that. I would go back and replace that wheel bearing,( at least inspect it to see if it even has any grease left in it at all.) both sides rotors, pads, both calipers, both side brake hoses, & inspect the inner side wall & bead of that tire that was exposed to that heat. If you got the rotor as hot as you said you did, you've caused other issues that when one fails it can cause you to have a real bad day. Something else is going to fail, it will take a week, maybe 4 weeks, but when it happens I wouldn't want be there. I have had all this same stuff happen to all 3 of my trucks that's just like yours. I learned all this the hard way.
Last edited by Kongfish; 01-17-2016 at 04:59 AM.
