Laughing Crow

Yesterday, I had the left front brake caliper lock up. I was driving in city traffic when the truck began to shudder badly, which it did one other time on the highway during the Thanksgiving drive home. But yesterday, smoke was bellowing out. I talked with my Ford mechanic who told me the piston in F150 calipers are a fiber composite and have a tendency to lock up. The real pisser is about two months ago I had put new EBC rotors and Greenstuff pads (now destroyed). In talking to Brendon at EBC he said there are rebuilt calipers with metal pistons available. I did a search, with no luck. Does anyone have a source where I can order this type of caliper?

Surfer285

Try ebay

Toshbar

Pretty much every standard performance hydraulic disc brake caliper has composite pistons. I'd get a standard replacement.

nrivera04

There's nothing wrong with the phenolic pistons IMO... They have better advantages over steel. Whatever you decide, I'd also suggest changing the rubber hose as well.

techrep

iTrader: (1)

and maybe following the recommended maintenance requirement for the brake system...

Kevinpmac

Excellent advice. The hose could be root cause...

STSCDave

My Dad's 2001 turned out to be the hose. I drove it home one day and smoke was coming off of one of the front brakes. The rubber on the inside of hose breaks down and acts like a check valve.

redfishtd

Had similar problems I have 155k on 2005 supercrew . Drove in florida 99 % time . No salt driving . Both fronts locked up on me at different times and I worked on them many times . Until someone told me that as the composite pistion goes out with wear it swells with moisture and sticks after replacing pads . The only fix was rebuilt calipers. I could not find steel piston replacements either .

Martian

The last time my pistons broke, I replaced the whole caliper with a Raybestos FRC I bought on Amazon. It came with the mounting bracket. Never had a problem since.

RLXXI

Have seen that many times, normally it's not the material breaking down so much as it is some goober changing pads/rotors and lets the caliper hang by the hose. Worst thing to do is let the caliper hang without support.
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