I need a little bit of guidance here. I have a 93 dodge ram D150 that on long drives, mostly with alot of stop and go the passenger side wheel gets really hot and even melted the plastic part of the hub cap. After awhile of this going on, If I continue to drive it, the truck will start to shake and if I dont hang onto the steering wheel it wants to drift off to the right. BUT if I drive down the freeway for 2-3 hours I dont have this issue, mostly starts happening after an hour of city driving.

Any Ideas? Bad rotor? Wheel barring maybe?

 

Brake caliper starting to grab.

 

By grabbing do you mean the rotor is warped, or the caliper needs rebuild/replaced?

 

The caliper is probably toast. It is easier to replace it than rebuild it. Have somebody push on the brake while you watch it, when they let off see if the caliper lets go completely. If it doesn't it is toast. If it does you might have a bearing going bad but this sounds like the caliper I had on my 82 that did the same thing. As I drove down the road with traffic it would start to hop on my right front and would get worse the longer I drove it. If I let it cool off for a while it would be good for a little bit but would start again. It turned out that the caliper wasn't letting go of the rotor completely when it was warm or hot.

 

when i first bought my truck the one caliper was pretty much seized. smoke use to come from it every time it came to a complete stop. it use to get so hot you couldn't even touch the hub cap without burning you fingers. as far as damage to the bearing, you should be ok. just clean and repack them. when i did replace my rotor it was blue but the bearings were fine. the only thing you might need to replace is the bearing seals unless you know how to get the old ones out in one peice.