Premature rear brakepad wear

[Ray z]

I have a 96 XLT. I have replaced the rear pads at 38k 74k and it looks like it needs them again at 91k. I have only replace the front once at 65k miles. I do not use car for towing, it is used by my wife to shuttle the kids around. Any thought on what is wrong? This CANNOT be normal.

 

[jimbo74]

that does sound odd.... the front brakes do 70% of the braking... which means, they should not have to be changed every 20k.... does she drive with her parking brake on? and also, there could be a problem with calipers sticking orsomething along those lines like a bad proportioning valve or the like

 

[Alec]

Does the truck feel like it's braking abnormally? Does the rear slide easily if you brake and turn at the same time? Is there excessive shimmy in the truck during hard braking?

 

[Ray z]

The truck stops fine. She never uses the emergency brake so I doubt that is the problem. How do you check proprtioning valve and caliper to see if it is sticking

 

[Raceit]

I'm sure to that if the new brake pads wern't broken in properly they could quickly wear out.

 

[410Fortune]

Your rear calipers may be dragging.
Are you using cheapo pads in the rear?

Your master cylinder most likely (96) has built in auto proportioning, meaning it adjusts itself, personally I prefer to adjust my own stuff, but thats just me.

the parking brake is not part of the disc setup, so it is not at fault.

You can have a real brake shop check the pressures and proportioning at all 4 corners, but if I were you, the truck stops fine, just get some carbon metallic pads back there and call it a day, or if you are determined you can replace the master.....a brake shop may charge you a ton of $$$$$$.....the rear calipers may also be needing replacement ($27 at Autozone), they can get hung up on the slides.

 

[Ray z]

410 fortune

How do you remove the rear rotors on a 4wheel disc setup. I removed the calipers and gave it a few shots with a rubber mallet and they didnt budge. The rotors are wiped out after 15k miles on the pads. Do you think it is possible both calipers are hung up. That seems pretty odd dont you think. What kind of number are we talking about for a master cylinder??

Ray

 

[410Fortune]

New master cyl is like $90 if you do it yourself.

There is a brake biast adjustment on the plunger that comes out of the brake booster, this adjusts the front to rear calibration, however I cannot recommend that you adjust it, the Ford books say never touch it, the proportioning is supossed to be self adjusting on your truck. We have fooled with this little sucker a few times because our truck originally had drums, so getting the proportioning correct is impossible without the correct master cylinder (too lazy to install so far). Brett wrote an article on how to convert to rear discs, you can find it on the board, this will explain more about adjusting the front/rear biast.

My rear discs drag at all times, this is due to a few things, I am still using a BII master cylinder which is designed for rear drums, I have deleted my RABS from the truck, and Ihave the proportioning set as good as I could get it which causes the rears to drag slightly. So I go through a set of rear pads a year, thank goodness for Autozone's lifetime warranty!!!

The plan is to install a 95+ Explorer master cylinder with the correct front and rear disc proportioning.
the rotors are a PITA to get off, first make sure your parking brake cable is loose.....then you unbolt them I believe and then they pound off with a rubber mallet (I have never taken mine off so I;m not sure but I do know they are a PITA) somebody else can chime in here on this one....

the rear rotors are thin to begin with and with excessive heat they will warp easy and with the pads always dragging they will wear out quickly, so to me it does sound like you are due for a master, calipers, and rotors. Thats the bad news. First you can call around to some performance brake places (Willwood or Brembro dealers) and see how much it would cost to have the problem diagnosed.......

You can tell by looking at the wear on the rear pads if the brakes are dragging at all times (like mine), the rear of the pads will be more worn out then the front, sothe wear on teh pads is greeater towards the rear of the truck....this points to calipers getting hung up on their slides...........

 

[dogfriend]

Another clue to the caliper pins sticking is that you may get uneven wear of the pads (lining is thicker at one end of pad, thinner at other).

This happened on mine, but luckily I caught it before it wore through.

The guy at NAPA warned me that they wouldn't replace them next time unless I corrected the problem (bought pads w/ lifetime warranty)

My experience is that I had to bang on rotors w/ rubber hammer the first time, but they came off easily the second time.

 

['96explorereddiebauer]

My '96 did that too. I didn't notice it until my mechanic told me. He said that my caliper was sticking so he attempted to fix it and it worked. I don't know what he did but he fixed it. I hope this helps.

 

[Howard]

I've just had to do a total brake job on my x at only 16k on the clock. Had to replace front discs (rotors) and pads as well as rear discs (rotors) and pads. The pads were completly shot down to less than 1mm left. The front dics had 50% rust on the inside edges so braking eficiancy was 25% less on the front. I also found that all the cylinders were full of cement dust so I guess the previous owner was a builder or something. The discs were a nice shade of blue but I had not felt any drag. Can't believe that they could have been in such a poor state at only 16k miles from new.

Ray
To remove the rear discs back off the parking brake adjusters the bang them off with a hide mallet

 

[explman1]

I did a complete system overhaul in January of this year, new calipers ,hoses, pads, rotors all the way around as well as a bled all 4 wheels. My front brakes are fine since then but i have gone through 2 sets of rotors and 3 sets of pads in the rear since January!! do i have a bad master cylinder??