went out this am, got my car on the highway, hit my brakes and now my drivers side brake is locked up.. cant move the car.. almost got sideswiped at 55 mph.. car is sitting sideways in the road.. what do I have to do to get this brake unfroze? if I cna get it to the shop today, its getting a new used caliper and rotor. both are @#$^ed up..

 

any advice anyone? my car is blocking the drive way

Have you checked the HillHolder valve? I'm asuming yours has one. I had the cable and spring dosconnected on my Project RX and it moved to the "on" position. That caused my front passangers side to lock up. I guess try looking at that.

awesome.. thanks for the reply.. goin to check it right now. will post an update in 3 minutes

Your best choice may be to just have it towed someplace you can work on it inside. I'm sure your weather isn't too good to work on it outside. Removing the brake line on the frozen wheel may release the brake.

ARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

 

I just found out I left the top of my toolbox (with the sooby tools) at work last night. I didnt get off until 10:30 pm so when I left, I left running..

 

well I got the car moved.. it wasnt the hillholder.. I'm going to make an attempt at getting it down to work. 8 mile drive in Ice fog (visibility about 100 feet).

 

should prove interesting. cant tell if its the wheel bearing that seized or what.. shouldnt be they only have 15,000 miles on them and they are packed with synthetic import wheelbearing grease.

 

 

oh and I just got a flat tire.. so I gotta change that before I attempt this adventure... at -41 F....

ok take the 36mm socket, put it on the axle nut, put a long like 4 ft breaker bar + cheater pipe on there and jump. If that doesn't work, get a prybar, take the wheel off and stick it in there and wrench on it as hard as you can. You said you're getting used ones so it don't matter if you screw this setup up:)

open up the bleeder nipple, that should release enough pressure to get it goin. sounds like brakes to me. Id also check the hillholder linkage.

alaska huh. is it realy cold? brake fluid soaks up water. if its very cold my brakes will do funny stuff, presumably due to water in my lines =/

 

maybe she just needs to be thawed out. if you pushed some ice behind the piston, that could lock it up.

I like Archemitis's idea of getting frozen up. Try opening the bleeder screw and see what happens.

If you can determine that it's the brakes, a propane torch for a few seconds should get you moving again.

alright anyone wanna make a guess at what it was?

 

 

the inner brake pad wasnt anywhere to be found.. I just changed the pads this fall when I rebuilt the front end. The caliper piston was making up for the missing pad.. it ate the hell out of the rotor. I've never seen anything like this happen before.. There isnt really a way for the pad to fall out once everything is in place and bolted down is therE?

 

I'm thinking because my rotors are warpt, the pad wore down abnormally and it basically ate the whole thing up including the packing plate.

 

uhh, I don't think there should be a way for the pad to fall out... if it just wore down weird you should've heard the metal on the pads indicating they're getting low...

 

odd for sure

I've had this happen on my 81. It was a REALLY cheap set of pads and the inner pad on the passenger side chucked its lining and the backing plate fell out. Heard it go PING! on the road and KACHUNK! against the floorpan. It CAN happen, but its a really weird thing...

you can take the caliper off to move the car if you had to........

I ended up driving 10 miles, not using the brakes even once.. got it freed'd up and made a run for it.. took me a few hours to dig up a new rotor and caliper out of the snowbank..