sticking brakes

Carboncrank
Fri, 24 Nov 2017 20:39:43 +0000
Maintenance/Repairs

2001 Chevy prizm 4 speed automatic.

Passenger side front brake will intermittently drag. It’s starts small but get’s quickly worse to the point where I’d better be able to find a place to park it. I notice when it happens I have a hard pedal. (no freeplay) I’ve had it hot enough to smell the brake a couple of times.

I let it sit and cool down for half an hour and everything is fine. 20 miles of driving the other day and no problem until I’m within a mile or mile and a half from home. I barely made it.

But In the last quarter mile I noticed something odd. As I came to a stop at a light close to home with it dragging I heard a brake squeak. Then I realized I heard it over my right shoulder. It was the right back rear that squeaked not the left front.

When I got home I checked the left front and of course it was very very hot. But then I went to the right read and tapped the drum with my forefinger… and nearly burned it. The right rear was very hot as well.

This has me thinking it’s not as straight forward as I though. I already bought a loaded caliper, shoes and a rotor for the front. 2 years ago I had a similar problem and with the help of a neighbor we found a problem with the caliper slider. He polished that up and everything is was fine until now so I just figured not more messing around trying to fix it, just replace the parts right?

But I had noticed that even with the left front dragging it was steering straight. I would think if the left is dragging it should pull left. But ahah! what if the right rear is compensating? Or what if the rear is the heart of the problem. I know there is crossover in the master cylinder.

My driving habits include putting the car in neutral at traffic lights because I have leg pain and don’t like to be forced to have a foot on the brake pedal, plus it uses less fuel in neutral. But if there is just a slight grade and a little roll I just give the hand brake a little pull. I thought it was a good idea to use the hand brake occasionally because most stuck cables happen with people that hardly ever use it and it sticks the next time they do. Could a sticking cable at the right rear be the culpret? Is there any way one brake dragging could cause the opposite rear to drag?

I’m wondering about the relationship between the opposite sides of front and rear through the master cylinder and which wheel has the real problem, left front or right rear.

I don’t think this is coincident. If I’m going to fix it I want to fix the right thing the first time.

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