hard driving on a mountain road... brake questions

[hydroxy]

Ok, I went cruising on a windy(how do you spell that? windy as in curves...) road today w/ a buncha people. Being lowered, w/ EE sway bars, shorter end links, and the new wheels made a HUGE difference. A stock 2000 mustang was following me, he told me that he was taking the turns about as hard as he would want to and I was pulling away from him. That is how much my handling has improved. The guy riding w/ me said mine was handling better then a lot of modded cars he has been in. That was on the way down the hill... on the way up, I was tailing a tiburon who was taking his turns hard, and I felt I could have pushed them even more. Needless to say, everyone was surprised that a SUV, much less an Explorer was able to keep up and go harder then a lotta the cars I was with.

Anyways - so on the way down w/ the mustang behind me, I was braking REALLY hard going through everything. We pulled over when a BMW's serpentine belt broke and popped off a radiator hose. I see that my rear brakes are smoking slightly. Not the front, just the rear. Then later that day when we were back in town going slow, my brakes were squeeling like no other.

Edit: front brakes/rotors have 20k mi on them. rear pads have maybe 2k mi on them, orig rotors. Both Ford brakes.

Did I do any permanent damage? Any other info I should know when I do driving like that again? And I'm guessing all I need to do is get the grease stuff for the front to get rid of the squeeking?

 

[TerryY]

You probably glazed the faces of the pads. So they squeal when they have pressure on them.

If you get steering wheel shake on braking now it is from pad material that stuck to the rotors when you stopped with the brakes that hot.

 

[hydroxy]

anyway to fix that? I dont know if glazing does this... but halfway down the mountain, my brakes didn't feel as strong as they had previously. Still good - but I could tell a little bit of a difference

 

[TerryY]

Have you ever done a complete brake fluid change?

If not it may have been water boiling out of the brake fluid. Brake fade is either that or melting pad faces or maybe both together.

Glazed pads may wear clean or you may have to manually clean the faces of the pads. If you are due for a change soon, just change them now.

 

[hydroxy]

fluid wasn't changed too long ago... probably last winter. Brakes are pretty good - when I was at boominxplorer's place during my lowering, we compared my fronts to new ones, and we had to put 'em side by side to see any difference between them...

 

[TerryY]

You may have to sand thru the glazed surface if it doesn't clear by itself.

 

[TerryY]

The brakes do seem awfully small on my X! They must be pretty borderline towing heavy loads.
But then I remember towing 25 foot trailers with car sized drum brakes too. You adapt to what you got

 

[james t]

your pads and possibly rotors are glazed over. you will need to shave the pads (or better yet, just buy new ones) and have the rotors resurfaced. also remember, when driving under those kinds of conditions DONT PARK IT. drive it for atleast 20 miles very easy on the brakes so they will cool down. when you park it with the brakes that hot the pads will overcure. this can cause chunks of the pad to break off or at least stress cracks in the pad and possibly warp the rotors.

basically, take the pads off and inspect them. if there are any signs of cracks, replace them. have the rotors turned. the place you have the rotors turned at will check runout and be able to tell you if you destroyed them or not.

... and take it a little easier on the brakes next time and be sure to drive normal for a long time after the canyon runs.

 

[Hartman]

Take it easy on the brakes. After all, Mercury Sable brakes are bigger than an Explorers.

 

[Alec]

And the brake fade you experienced after a while of hard braking is normal. It's when the pads heat up so much they don't work as well.

And it's probably time for new pads and at least resurfacing the rotors (I'd get new ones). Not totally the fault of your hard run, but since they already had 20k you may have killed them.

Get slotted (not crossdrilled) rotors and you won't have as bad of a glazing problem next time, though you should never work your brakes really hard, then park it for more than a few minutes.

 

[hydroxy]

ALright, I'll take a look at it all next weekend when I'm at boomin's place building my box.

Lesson learned: dont drive agressively DOWN a mountain road. =P

 

[james t]

.....and dont park it right after driving agressively.

 

[Alec]

Drive how you want, one reason for your mods is to have fun. Just know how to maintain your vehicle and keep in mind that driving it hard will wear parts out faster.

I replaced Splat's front brakes about every 30k. I had the stockers, and everyone knows I drove it very hard and had larger tires later. However, I always let the brakes cool and never had a problem.

 

[hydroxy]

unfortunetly I did have to park it in the middle of going down the mountain, because of that BMW - for about 15 minutes. But then drove for aobut 30 min after that.

Also, I think I might drive agressivly like this maybe once a month tops? It wont be a regular occurence I dont think.