Parking Brake Nightmare

DeePa · February 23, 2012

So a week ago, I was getting an awful grinding noise when I hit the brakes, so I ended up replacing the front and rear brake pads and rotors. The parking brake dust shield/backing plate rotted away, and got inbetween a rear pad and the rotor on the right side.

I broke away as much of the rusted shield as I could, and once new pads and rotors were installed, tere were not any noises. On my 20 mile drive home, it starting making a high pitched grinding noise that went away over 30, but was obnoxious at any speeds under that, especially when turning.

I figured it must be the remnants of the backing plate contacting something, so I bought two new plates, drained the pumpkin, pulled the axles, and replaced the backing plate and axle seals while it was apart.

Reinstalled everything, noise was quiet until a longer drive, and the noise was back.

I went and bought a parking brake hardware kit from autozone (containts 2 of the spring/plate type parking brake retainers, star wheels, plungers, etc etc) and it kept the parking brake shoes nice and tight against their assembly. I thought for sure the problem would be fixed, as the shoes were able to slide around a little bit due to the old retainer clips being worn and had lost their holding power. There was dust inside of the rotor where the parking brake rides, and I am 99% sure this is where my noise is coming from...

Reinstalled everything again, and the noise reappeared once I drove a few miles at higher speeds, and it is back to being noisy below 30, but ok at highway speeds... I adjusted the parking brake so the the rotors would not slide on, then backed off the star adjuster so there was not any drag on the rotors. I then installed a new intermediate parking brake cable because mine was snapped, and adjusted the nut to take up the slack in the lines. Could this be adjusted too tight? It was making the noise before I put a new cable on...

Does anyone have any idea on how to fix this? I am at my wit's end with this issue and I hate having my vehicle sound like a POS driving down the road. I am about 400 dollars into this project at this point, and I do not need new parking brake shoes because they have little to no wear on them, and meet the specs of 1.5mm thick at the most worn part of the shoe.

To make matters worse, I am driving to Philly, PA Saturday and would like this fixed before then, so I have today and tomorrow to finish this up or I am in trouble.

Thanks for any help.

Mike

Stevens03 · February 23, 2012

Are you 100% sure it's the brakes? Maybe a bad u-joint or wheel hub bearing?...

vanettend · February 23, 2012

possible wheel bearing going out, i notice a squeeling noise in my '06 right before it went out

DeePa · February 24, 2012

All wheel bearing checked out.

Friend took a ride with me and stuck his head out the window and verified that the noise was coming from the front right wheel.

Pulled the wheel and the dust shield/backing plate was rubbing against the rotor.

Learned a very big lesson...do not assume what the noise is. Get the truck on jack stands and spin each wheel individually to check for the noise. If i had done that first off, I would have just done rear brakes and rotors, and the fronts would have been fine.

Thanks,

Mike