My kid’s 95 Plymouth Voyager’s right front was making noise, so I pulled the wheel. Outer pad was worn to the shoe steel, and inner had 1/4 of the lining left. Changed the pads and rotor, and the piston could not be pushed back into the bore, so I replaced that too. Left side looked nearly new.
The new pads were a LITTLE sticky on the rails but nothing to be really concerned about. When I went to advance the piston out to clamp… the pedal was difficult to depress given the amount of clearance.
I put everything back together and drove it and it felt like it was dragging a little, but not a lot.
Given that it is a new caliper and the difficulty in advancing the piston out to initial clamp… where is the most likely location of restriction? The vehicle does not have ABS.
The first place I would go is the flexible brake hose. They quietly break down on the interior. I’d go ahead and do both sides.
Replaced hose on the dragging side and that cleared up the problem pretty well. I was not able to replace both hoses as the tube nut on the other side is corroded to the tube.
Meanwhile, the balance is still off. He’s had premature lock up of the right rear for sometime now… and after the work done above and a THOROUGH inspection of the rears (good lining life remaining and nothing else of note) it still locks up early.
It is possible that the hose on the other side is restricted and causing the premature lockup on the right rear. This vehicle has a diagonally split brake system, so the left front and right rear are on the same circuit. A restriction in the front hose can cause too much pressure to go to the rear, resulting in premature lockup. The alternative is some other kind of problem with the rear brakes, out of adjustment, incorrect installation, broken hardware, etc.
You can try spinning the hose off the steel line and spinning the new one onto it to try to prevent it from breaking to avoid having to replace the line. If that doesn’t work, there may be enough left to cut it off clean, install a new tube nut, and reflare the line. I usually try the first method and if that fails I move on to the second method. If the second method doesn’t work, you can normally splice in a short length of new line with a union fitting to make it long enough to reach.