Check your brake caliper pins regularly

[Jason94sport]

I was having some brake issue the last month where the brakes would lock up for no reason. I use them & they wouldn't release & had some noise issues with what sound like them dragging. I took the wheels off several times to inspect & they seemed to be fine. Pads looked ok, the rotors had no unusual wear.
I thought maybe it was ABS related & decided to buy new rotors with newer abs rings & bearings. I went to replace things this weekend, & upon trying to remove the caliper slide pins on the passenger side they both were cracked right down the middle hidden from view unless I tried to remove them. Same on the drivers side. All 4 pins were toast.
$15 for new pins & my brake issues are gone.
I never had a set break before on 3 X's.

 

[Rick]

Interesting. First time I've heard of that happening.

 

[Rich52490]

I just recently had one slide out on its own

Good advice here

 

[MrShorty]

Had you replaced those pins before, or were they still original pins? Was it the metal that had cracked, or was the rubber inside that had cracked?

At $15 for all 4, I decided at one point that it was worth replacing those pins with each brake job. When I first replaced mine, the rubber was so old and deformed that there was no more "outward" spring left to hold the pins in. I guess I'm kind of wondering if you got a bad set of pins, or if they were just old and fatigued to the point of failure.

 

[Tbars4]

..You are suppose to replace those pins with each brake job and if regular maintenance is not done to them (cleaned and greased to slide) they need to be replaced...

 

[Jason94sport]

Had you replaced those pins before, or were they still original pins?

Don't know I had them out last year with I put new pads on. They looked fine & I lubed them. I don't drive it much. I put about 3K miles on it in a year.
The metal was cracked all the way through to the rubber & the rubber was falling out in pieces too. I would expect 1 or 2 but all 4 were the same. Odd.

 

[MrShorty]

Yea, it does seem odd that all 4 would fail in the same way like that. It suggest either some defect in that batch of slide pins. Or maybe you got some water on them and they corroded or something. Whatever happened, glad you caught it before anything more dramatic happened.

 

[Fastest Caskets]

I have to put alot of pads on my truck (but I finaly tought the wife to drive with ONE foot) and I always change those little *******s, got a whole drawr in my toolbx full of em just incase

 

[BrooklynBay]

Excess heat might cause the rubber to warp, then if you go through a puddle of cold water, it might cause the metal to suddenly contract (causing the pin to slide out).

On a side note, it's also a good idea to check your lug nuts. I was driving today, then suddenly my driver's side wheel started to make a loud knocking noise. I pulled over to check the slide pins since I replaced my calipers two weeks ago. The pins were fine, but I noticed that 3 out of 5 lug nuts were loose. The wheel was wobbling.