Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2005 03:53:33 EDT
Reply-To: Oxroad@AOL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jeff Oxroad <Oxroad@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: front wheel hot to the touch? caliper dragging?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Yeah Chris, al lthe same as others said, but here's my experience.
I had an extrememly hot front passenger wheel and the smell of burning
brakes normally saved for long downhill grades and coming from 18 wheelers.
It was about 5 years ago so I don't remember all the details. But I took
off
the wheel and opened the rotor and the outer bearing had noticably failed. I
think it's a roller bearing and I don't remember the extent of the failure
exactly. But I do remember whatever it was it was easily visible looking at
the bearing. I think the part that holds the roller bearing was warped and
out
of shape--but agian it's been a while.
I replaced all the front bearings since they were all some cheap crap RMMW
had sent me. That solved the problem--it seems. I never changed out or
adjusted
any of the brake parts in this operation (not that the caliper is
adjustable).
Now, a few years later, let's say two I started to have trouble with that
passenger side caliper with the braked pulling to the right. I replaced bot
calipers at that point as they were going on about 20years old=but again
this
waw a different operation two years after the hot wheel.
So I'm not completely convinced about what happened. I suppose the bearing
could have failed when I initially felt the wheel was hot. My theory would
be
the bearing failed the rotor got hot, expanded, and then got hotter as it
rubbed on the brake pads. This because I'm pretty sure the smell was hot
brake
pad smell. although I suppose that smell we associate with hot brakes could
just be a host of hot wheel stuff: rotor, brake pad, rubber of tire etc in
kind
of an olfactory cocktail. (?)
In conclusion, that original hot wheel seemed to be the bearing. Once
everything cooled down I checked the wheel and it spun freely with no brake
drag. I
can't recall if there was bearing noise in this test. But something got me
looking at the bearing which as I said had noticably failed.
I suppose there's a chance the caliper had a "one-time" stuck drag on the
rotor causing the heat, melting the grease, failing the bearing. Or it was a
strange coincidence and the bus somehow puposely dragged the brakes so i
would
find the bearing busted before I sert out on the cross country trip I was
prepping for.
But like I said, at that time, I replaced the bearings and never had that
hot wheel trouble since. Even when the front caliper caused the bus to pull
to
the right a few years later the wheel never got hot like that.
I live in SoCal so I just got up because life is slow like a high-top loaf
and I'm rambling. But you get the idea. I'm gonna get coffee.
Best,
Jeff
83.5 Westy
LA,CA
