Ford E250 rear wheel smoking

[Jeff J]

03 Ford E250 van

The left rear wheel in my van started smoking. I jacked up the rear of the van and tried to spin the wheels. The right side was fine, but the left side had a lot of friction. The brake pads were still grabbing onto the rotors. I’ve read online that this can be caused by a stuck caliper or a bad hydraulic line.

I just purchased this van and live about 2 hours away, so I want to come prepared. How can I diagnose if it is the brake line or caliper? Can I just crack the nut on the bleeder valve to release the pressure? If it does release after opening the bleeder valve, is it safe to say that it is the rear brake line?

Topic

[Bill]

If the brake releases when opening the bleeder valve chances are good that the rubber brake hose has collapsed and will need to be replaced. If when opening the bleeder, little fluid comes out and the brake still drags either the caliper piston is seized, the guide pins are seized or the pads are pinched in the caliper brackets by rust.

If the bleeder won’t open you can get the same results by loosening the brake line fitting on the caliper. Also make sure the parking brake is not stuck on as the shoes are inside the rotors and can also cause a brake drag.

[Lorrin Barth]

Ninty percent of the time the answer is yes. The other 10% would be things like wacko abs or something else.

One fellow I corresponded with had one front brake locking up. He did the test like you describe, actually lots of them, tracing the pressure through the system and finally replaced the abs unit. That didn’t do it either. The cause turned out to be a flake of metal in the pressure relief port on half of the master cylinder. Since this car was plumbed on the diagonal and the rear brakes didn’t do much he didn’t notice the problem at the rear.

So, just saying, it is not 100% proof positive but is strong evidence.

[dan]

i will also add that rusty anti vibration clips and guide pins can cause the brakes too stay applied as well, a thero break inspection is a good idea…

as stated before if its a line with broken rubber in it thats holding pressure too the caliber buy wysetech opening the bleeder screw will typically release pressure and with the bleeder screw open compressing the caliper with a C clamp or as eric does with a very large pair of pliers with the bleeder screw open, if the caliper piston does not compress easily than the caliper is probably froze, but be advized with bleeder screws that at times they get very rusty and i would suggest spraying some PB spray or Liquid wrench or WD40 or Kroil on that bleeder screw and let it soak in before reaming on it because they are know too break right off inside the caliper.

and i also agree with barneyb sometimes wacky stuff happens with ABS but that is super rare.

here is this too
http://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/solving-brake-problems?start=3#HowtoDiagnoseaBadBrakeCaliper

[Jeff J]

Thank you

I cracked the bleeder screw and it didn’t release the caliper. I ended up replacing the caliper and everything seems to be fine now.

[EricTheCarGuy]

Cool, thanks for the update and for using the ETCG form. More information on solving brake problems like this can be found here.

http://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/solving-brake-problems

[Author]

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