brake problems 99 g. caravan

71 318 valiant · #1 04-18-2009, 07:37 PM

I've got a '99 grand caravan (ok i lied it's a voyager

. I have been having a recurrent problem with the driver side caliper siezing on me, 3 times in the past 9 months. Luckily for me they have a lifetime warranty, bad for autozone! i've bled all four corners evertime i swap out the caliper and had it proffessionally done last time at jiffy lube. i don't notice leaking anywhere. the lastest time the brake lights stay on as well. i was able to turn them off by opening the brake cap at first but now the only way i can get them off is by disconnecting the battery. currently the caliper is dragging intermittently. Any suggestions?

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floorslayer1 · #2 04-26-2009, 04:13 PM

I went through this last year with my 99. It was eating up pads and driver's side caliper was sticking. Replaced calipers twice. They would bleed out fine so I couldn't figure it out out.......until ..... I realized caliper was bleeding out only when brake pedal was applied. The rubber brake hose that attaches to the caliper was check-valving, and not allowing the fluid to return when the pedal was released. It was holding the pressure causing the caliper to stick.

71 318 valiant · #3 05-02-2009, 12:14 PM

so you changed out the rubber hose and it works fine now? Thanks for the help, hope it works

71 318 valiant · #4 05-02-2009, 10:24 PM

thanks floorslayer1, changed out the hose and seems to be much better.

map79z28 · #5 05-06-2009, 02:06 PM

I think that I am having the same problem, only that it showed up in a different way. My drivers side caliper was not seized, but I noticed that I really had to wail on the clamp to push the piston back into the caliper. I realized that this was not normal, it should not have been that hard to push back in. I did buy a reman caliper and I picked up a pair of calipers from the junk yard for a few $ over the core charge on the reman. The DS caliper from the junk yard looked like it was maybe a year old at most. So I returned the new caliper and I am in the process of cleaning it up, painting it (red), and putting on new rubber to overhaul. I also am putting on new rubber hoses. My reasoning is this, and this may be related to the "check valve" issue that you described. The pressure had to be high to push the piston out for braking and that expanded the hose more than normal. Then when the master cylinder returned to the resting position, a vacuum collaspe occurs in the hose because of the weakened hose - maintaining the pressure at the pad/rotor. Just a thought, but the high pressures compell me to replace the hoses as well. I was surprised about how easy it is to overhaul a caliper, and will never buy a reman/new caliper again. The other thing that I noticed was that this causes glazing on the rotor. That is where a thin layer of shiny metal covers rusting metal below - causes rotors to rust because of high heat and slow release of the pads. Also eats pads because of the rust on the rotors. Wondered if anyone else noticed this as well?