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Dragging Rear brake

2stroke

Explorer Addict
Joined
August 7, 2013
Messages
1,169
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Location
55302
City, State
Annandale, MN
Year, Model & Trim Level
1993 Ford Explorer Sport
I am having a little bit of an issue with just the rear brakes. When I first take off in the morning my rear brakes grab harder than the fronts. If I am not careful, my rears can actually lock up. After about a mile of driving, the problem completely goes away. I have lots of new brake parts, but the problem has just started a couple of weeks ago. In the last year I have new pads, shoes, rotors, drums, new hard lines, new rubber lines, all air bled well, new parts kit in rear drums. Now that I think of it, the only thing that isn't new is the master cylinder. This truck only had 2 wheel ABS, and it since it didn't work, I ran my hard lines right from the master cylinder to the rubber hoses. I pulled the rear drums recently to look for problems, but every thing seemed normal. No leaking fluid, and everything seemed in place. My brakes worked perfectly for months before this. Maybe I am a lot of condensation in the drums at night?
 



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It's just the cold weather shrinking the drums.

You can manually slack off the adjusters a bit or just run it. That slight drag in the AM won't hurt a thing. Just need to be careful on the pedal.

Or better yet, two foot it for a bit and purposely heat up the brakes a little.
 






This is a common problem for people on the Fullsize Bronco forum. I experienced it too very recently. As you may be aware the Bronco uses an 8.8 very similar to the Explorer's.

General consensus on the issue seems to lie with the rear brake proportioning valves getting crud in them, but this mainly affects earlier trucks since later ones don't have such a valve. I'm not sure on your truck. Mine didn't have a proportioning valve.

I realized on my truck that since I'd had it, the rear brakes were too aggressive. I confirmed they were especially bad by hitting the parking brake at 40mph, and the rear tires chirped. Drums shouldn't be that touchy! They are however self energizing, so if they're not operating properly this can happen. At first it was only in the rain, but soon it was always locking up tires with moderate application of the brake pedal (during the first few miles).

What fixed my issue was installation of new Dorman rear wheel brake cylinders and a complete new drum brake hardware kit. One cylinder started to leak once I removed the plungers, and all the hardware was crusty with dirt/corrosion/brake dust. I wire brushed all the parts and installed all new hardware (think it was a Carlson kit). Re-used the shoes and drums. Installed Dorman Speed Bleeders to replace the crusty stockers.

After bleeding and adjusting the brakes, the truck no longer has overly aggressive brakes. They operate smoothly and I haven't had a problem since. I think the brakes were not retracting properly and the automatic adjusters were trying to compensate for what seemed like worn out shoes.
 






I'll have to try backing off the adjusters. I back up a lot, so I'm sure they are always right on the edge of too tight. I don't have a proportioning valve. I ran a hard line right to the rear brake hose, which just has a 2 way block, which I ran more hard line. Good to know I'm not the only one with the problem, and I will no longer worry about it since I have great brakes once warm.
 






It's just the cold weather shrinking the drums.

You can manually slack off the adjusters a bit or just run it. That slight drag in the AM won't hurt a thing. Just need to be careful on the pedal.

Or better yet, two foot it for a bit and purposely heat up the brakes a little.

x2 here.

Before I switched to disks, I had the same issue and it I figured out I had the adjusters too tight. It doesn't take much to go too far. The drag will go away as the shoes/drum wear but its not a huge thing unless you're really dragging a wheel around.
 






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