Front brakes

[snowpeke]

I did a brake job on my 2002 2500 Dmax. The back brakes on the right rear were down to metal to metal. Put on a new rotor and pads. Now to the front. There were a lot of pad left but changed them any way. Now for a test drive the back brakes were warm but the front were cold. How can I get them to work equally?

[wowens79]

The brakes on my 2002 Chevy HD wore really even, and a long freaking time. I replaced the original pads at 225,000 miles, and all 8 pads wore identically, you could tell no wear difference in any of them.
Best brake system I ever had.
My wife had an accord, that the back brakes wore faster than the front, but the rear pads were about half the size of the front ones.

[time2roll]

snowpeke wrote:
Thanks for the advice just took a one dayn RV trip and they stop the truck and trailer fine.

If the rears are wearing substantially faster than the front.... I believe the brakes are not working properly or were poorly designed.

[Grit_dog]

RoyJ wrote:
The front brakes more under HEAVY braking. The proportioning valve assumes enough weight transfer has occurred and send more hydraulic pressure forward. Under light braking, most modern trucks/cars use the rears more.

Now if the fronts are actually cold / lukewarm, there might be a problem.

Have you tried hard (threshold of ABS) braking and then carefully feel the front for increased heat?

scroll up 2 posts. OP said his brakes work fine.

[RoyJ]

The front brakes more under HEAVY braking. The proportioning valve assumes enough weight transfer has occurred and send more hydraulic pressure forward. Under light braking, most modern trucks/cars use the rears more.

Now if the fronts are actually cold / lukewarm, there might be a problem.

Have you tried hard (threshold of ABS) braking and then carefully feel the front for increased heat?

[Grit_dog]

snowpeke wrote:
Thanks for the advice just took a one dayn RV trip and they stop the truck and trailer fine.

ROFLMAO
:S

[snowpeke]

Thanks for the advice just took a one dayn RV trip and they stop the truck and trailer fine.

[BenK]

additional comments embedded in red below

snowpeke wrote:
I did a brake job on my 2002 2500 Dmax. The back brakes on the right rear were down to metal to metal. Put on a new rotor and pads. Now to the front.

There were a lot of pad left but changed them any way. Now for a test drive the back brakes were warm but the front were cold.

Says your fronts are not in the braking ball game *AND* will not bed in properly...if ever

As bedding in requires the friction material to get hot enough to out-gas, which then condenses onto the brake rotor surface. This is part of 'curing' the friction material, and advise that there are many Internet comments that today's friction material does NOT need to be cured...I say as long as there are binders in the friction material, it needs to be cured by high temp baking

Friction material on friction material is the best braking, as that has the highest coefficient of friction.

But do NOT stop while the friction material is out-gassing. That will bake on a thicker layer of friction material that will have future braking 'pulsate', as if the rotors are warped. To remove those higher friction material spots, get up to highway speed and NAIL the brakes. That will scrub off those high spots.

Then continue to roll to get an even condensed layer of friction material on the rotors.

No biggie to have a high spot baked on...just repeat the above highway scrub proceedure

How can I get them to work equally?

My previous response addresses your question and it might take an ASE Master Brake mechanic to diagnose & fix it

Note: am not an ASE certified brake person.

Just someone who has designed industrial disc brakes (most common were 17"-24" dia range) and the biggest one is a 48" dia disc and calipers (half calipers, as they only pressed onto the disc from one side & married with another one on the other side of the disc)

[Grit_dog]

What is a going on here??
Good golly, pump the brakes (lol) y’all.
OP never even said he has a brake problem. He just changed 4 sets of brake pads and either 1 or 2 rotors (unclear from his 1 relatively vague post).
While I don’t have a lot of faith that many could diagnose a brake problem and know how to repair it, which is what y’all’s great advice is trying to provide, I sort of believe that if the truck wasn’t stopping properly, even the least observant of people (not saying the oP is unobservant) would identify and state that the brakes weren’t working right, if they were looking for info or advice.

[BenK]

My thoughts...

Fronts not warm...blockage, air in the front lines, MC piston seal, proportioning valve, and hanging caliper are the main things to look for

Easiest and cheapest is to bleed both front lines

Then check if the caliper is hanging. These are single piston with an anvil on the other side of the rotor. That means they must 'center' themselves during any stop and after some friction material has worn off. The caliper slide pin assembly needs to be replaced and properly greased. With the correct grease (high temp, disc brake grease)

My DIY for greasing the slide pin tube (the side pin slides inside this tube), between the O-Rings is to put it together and NOT finish the 2nd O-ring and while the interior is still open, poke in my grease gun for a couple strokes of grease. Then finish with both O-Rings engaged.

Click For Full-Size Image.

Some times, most times also put in some synthetic motor oil (Mobil 1) that has my own mixture of powdered Molybdium Disulfide with this modified oiler

Click For Full-Size Image.


Click For Full-Size Image.

Bleeding. Normally use the giant "C" clamp method. Lost the Internet posting link when Photobucket switched from freebie to for $$$ and will have to make up another, but have posted it here often. Or use gravity bleed. Be sure to include opening the ABS body valves to bleed them too...this will require a scan tool that can open & hold them open while bleeding

Proportioning splits the braking PSI/GPH between front and rear. It could be sticking and if replaces, must bleed all brake lines.

A very remote possibility is that your front caliper has a pebble/stone/etc wedged in there preventing movement. Have come across one a loooong time ago

Good luck and please report back on how it went

[BurbMan]

fj12ryder wrote:
Just curious, how does the proportioning valve know whether the truck is loaded or unloaded. Your explanation makes quite a bit of sense, just wondering about the proportioning valve.

Most trucks use one or more ride height sensors that measure the distance from the body to the frame (or axles) and provide that input to the BCM/PCM/ABS computers.

My 2001 2500 Suburban had 4, one at each corner, and that data drove ABS modulation, shock damping, and also throttle response. The 8.1 was drive-by-wire, and it never seemed any slower when it was loaded up, the reason was that the computer knew the truck was loaded and would give the motor more fuel even though I wasn't stepping on the pedal any harder.

[fj12ryder]

Just curious, how does the proportioning valve know whether the truck is loaded or unloaded. Your explanation makes quite a bit of sense, just wondering about the proportioning valve.

[Grit_dog]

snowpeke wrote:
I did a brake job on my 2002 2500 Dmax. The back brakes on the right rear were down to metal to metal. Put on a new rotor and pads. Now to the front. There were a lot of pad left but changed them any way. Now for a test drive the back brakes were warm but the front were cold. How can I get them to work equally?

Did it also feel like the front brakes weren’t working right?
If any wheels were cold either they weren’t working or you barely used the brakes.
You should also bed the brakes when they’re new.
Rears we’re probably warmer because new rotors = a lot more friction than the old smooth probably glazed front rotors and you didn’t use the brakes very hard.

[BurbMan]

The brakes are working as designed. The front brakes are bigger and designed to do most of the stopping when the truck is loaded. If the front brakes went to work with the box empty the truck would go sideways in an instant, especially on a wet road. The proportioning valve is set to have the rears do most of the work when the truck is unloaded to keep it in a straight line.

If you towed most of the time the fronts would wear out first, but since we're empty or lightly loaded most of the time the rears wear out first.

Regarding the rears, if one side was down to bare metal and the other rear still had meat on the pad, then you may have a dragging caliper on that side. be sure to remove and lube the caliper slide pins as part of the job. Also, be sure to put the pins back in the right spots, they are often not interchangeable top to bottom and can cause brake wear like this.

[specta]

I have a 2011 Chevy 2500 HD.
I was told by a friend that owns two tires stores that also do general repair.
He told me the back brakes on my truck would wear faster than the fronts.
I will be checking the rear brakes probably next week. The fronts are still at about 45-50%. And that's with 230,000 miles on the brakes.

[corvettekent]

On my 2007 GMC 3500HD dually at 175,000 miles one rear pad was down to metal so I replaced one rotor and all the pads. The front pads had over 50% of the original pad left. As for temperature they all feel warm.