Hey guys I stopped at my work today and got out of the car and noticed smoke coming from the passenger side rear tires. I touched the rim and it was incredibly hot. I poured some water on the brakes inside to try to cool them down. It's only on that side of the rear because the drivers side is fine. What does this mean?

 

Possibly a frozen caliper.

 

have you heard any grinding or clunking noises?

 

Yes I have heard grinding and clunking noises.

 

Sounds like metal to metal on the pads and rotors or even worse the piston in the caliper could of been over displaced and it could be locking up the brakes on that side. Look towards on replacing calipers and rotors, usually you want to do those in pairs. Hopefully there's no damage to brake lines or any mounting brackets.

Time for drilled and slotted rotors, right!

 

This means your brake overheated pretty bad.. you sure your e-brake wasnt left partially on by accident? (I know you said it was only one side, but the e-brake could be out of adjustment and only grabbing on one side..) Pouring water on it wasn't a good idea either.. hopefully you didnt warp the rotor anyway.

 

no on the drilled, yes on the slotted. You can rebuild the calipers if you wish... its kind of a pain in the *** without correct tools. Or you can get rebuilt ones.

 

jack that tire in the air and try to pull it off, with all the lug nuts still tightened down. checking to make sure it's not a wheel bearing. if the tire does move, take it to a shop or replace it yourself asap.

 

Yeah I checked the bearings a while ago, no problems, but I just checked them again and they were fine. Is that the only thing that you think the grinding or clunking could be?

I did a little inspection on it, would like to do the whole thing but I can't seem to find my lug wrench, I checked the brakes by jacking up the rear and putting the parking brake on, the driver's side didn't move at all, but the passenger side (the side where all the smoke and stuff came from) did move freely. Then I put the car in neutral and both moved freely, parking brake off of course. So this leads me to believe that its the parking brake that's out of adjustment, am I correct? Is there anything else it could be? Note that I was sure that I didn't have the parking brake up when I was driving and this whole thing happened, my friend was with me when I was driving and he can vouch for me, however I have accidently driven with the parking brake up before, took me a while then to figure out why I couldn't launch so well

 

What were you doing before this happend?

I have had my front brakes catch fire before. I have slotted rotor & upgraded pads. I was drivin the mountain really hard one night. & when I pulled over at the bottom of the mountain my LF brake pads were actually on fire. ACTUAL FLAMMAGE! But they work just fine. Im lucky I didnt melt the seal on the caliper. I have SS lines so Im lucky there. Im pretty sure that it was Brake Fluid that caught fire though. I have just taken out my entire ABS system days before and I think a little fluid was left on there

 

Yeah I'm pretty sure you were right about everything. I was aware of the possibility of warping the rotor when I poured the water, but I couldn't stay in the parking lot for long and didn't wanna drive when the rotors that hot anyway. Thanks for the reply, I thought from the beginning it was the e-brake, which I still think it is, just out of adjustment. That's why the first thing I did was test it by moving it over to a hill in the parking lot, and it does still work fine, but as you can see from my previous post, it is the e-brake and it is definately out of adjustment.

 

I was just driving around, wasn't even driving too hard. I was just testing out the new ignition and fuel pump I had just put in to see the idle and power gains and I think I only hit full throttle once when I was in second gear to beat a light at an intersecton. No hard braking at all, I've recently been downshifting instead of braking in this car, because I do need new front pads, was hoping to install those tommorrow. And had no hard braking at all, don't think I even used the brake because the only time I slowed down was coming into the parking lot, but I just hit it in neutral and coasted in. Anyway, I've never replaced an e-brake cable myself. Is it hard to do, like how long will it take and will I need special tools? Also do I have to replace the whole cable, because it's just out of adjustment I don't know if I can just adjust it without the need of replacing it?

 

you can't really just adjust one side of the parking brake. they're both equally adjusted. I had somewhat of the same problem actually. turns out that the one side come off the lever at the brake caliper.

 

also, how many miles are on the brake pads?

 

No idea, just bought the car a few weeks ago. But when I drove it then I didn't ntice the squeling of the metal pad wear indicator brushing against the rotor. I'll ask the previous owner if he knows.

 

i had a old ford F150 catch on fire because of wheel bearings...be careful whatever it broke, make sure you fix it...LOL i had to poor my pop and **** on it to get it out!!! SMELLED HORRIBLE!!! LMAO

 

You might be having a fluid problem on that side. Check all the lines and make sure they arent cracked.