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| Toyota Brake Problem; brakes building pressure | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 7 2013, 04:27 PM (1,127 Views) | |
| crankcase | Dec 7 2013, 04:27 PM Post #1 |
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My stepdaughter has a 2003 Toyota Accord. In the last month, the brakes build pressure up and/or don't release pressure. The car starts slowing down, eventually overheats, and the brakes start locking up. She told me she was having problems with her car over heating. Later on she added it there was making a smell and the car was not accelerating well. When I finally looked at it, she had just parked it because the engine was over heating, but when I tried to move the car and it had the obvious feeling of the brakes being locked up. If it sits about an hour, it will go again. I never found any reason for the car to overheat other than the brakes. She had a shop put on some new calipers and pads about 9 months ago, but all has been well untill last month. Any ideas?
Edited by crankcase, Dec 7 2013, 04:29 PM.
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| Mythstae | Dec 7 2013, 04:31 PM Post #2 |
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![]() I'm pretty sure there's no such animal. Toyota [something] or Honda Accord ? |
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| evmetro | Dec 7 2013, 04:39 PM Post #3 |
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Air in a caliper. Jack up each corner and spin that wheel until you come to the one that does not turn. Bleed it. There are some calipers that will do this... a small amount of air is trapped and expands as it heats up, making the problem worse. I don't know for sure if you have one of those calipers, but you can try. Get her a Metro. |
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| JellyBeanDriver | Dec 7 2013, 04:44 PM Post #4 |
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Can be a hose or the master cylinder. If the brake pedal height/pushrod adjustment is not right, the port in the MC won't be uncovered making the lines 'sealed' and can build up pressure with heat. |
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| don_dowdy | Dec 7 2013, 04:48 PM Post #5 |
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I've seen this on older cars when the flexible brake lines swell up on the inside. Your foot puts enough pressure on the fluid to force it out to the wheels, but there isn't anything strong enough to push it back from the wheels, it just slooowly leaks back. 2003 is really new for this to happen, it's common on 1960s-70s cars. Drive it for a bit and see if one wheel gets hot, that will narrow it down. If you open the bleeder on that wheel for a sec and let the pressure off, it will go again and get you home.
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| crankcase | Dec 7 2013, 04:52 PM Post #6 |
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Thanks guys. Toyota something or other ?
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| David95237 | Dec 7 2013, 04:52 PM Post #7 |
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Had the rod unscrew out of the brake linkage before.
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| Old Man | Dec 7 2013, 04:56 PM Post #8 |
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run it til it brake gets got again. feel the brakes. If only one is hot check that caliper. If two or more is hot check the master cylinder. |
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| Metromightymouse | Dec 7 2013, 07:48 PM Post #9 |
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Powdercoat Wizard
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With the added catch that most systems are diagonally linked, front right to rear left etc, and the rear brake will heat up less. Edited by Metromightymouse, Dec 7 2013, 07:48 PM.
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| crankcase | Dec 7 2013, 10:09 PM Post #10 |
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Linkage has not been adjusted that I know of. Thanks for all the great ideas. It's been unusually chilly here, today about 29 degrees with a strong wind, and I didn't want to go outside and work in it until I had exhausted every excuse to stay indoors. |
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| Woodie | Dec 8 2013, 05:32 AM Post #11 |
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It's this. They're all the same age so who cares which one is bad? Replace all four. |
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| geogonfa | Dec 8 2013, 09:14 AM Post #12 |
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possibly someone could have added the wrong brake fluid. this could cause the rubber in the system to swell or rot from the inside...the best thing to do is get it to act up, put it up on jack stands and see which wheels are locked up...if you don't have a garage you can put it in to work on, or if you need help, pm me... |
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| Jordan | Dec 8 2013, 08:51 PM Post #13 |
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DOT 3 and DOT4 are cross compatible, with DOT5 and 5.1 being both not compatible and prohibitively expensive, as well as generally unavailable off the shelf. It's unlikely that brake fluid will cause rubber lines to swell. What DOES make them swell is any type of oil in the brake system, like if someone added power steering fluid to the reservoir by accident. What can also happen is that over time any brackets that happen to wrap around a portion of the flexhose become rusted due to water trapped between the bracket and rubber hose. The rust forms between the hose and bracket and actually shuts off flow through the hose - you can get fluid through because of the mechanical advantage created by the brake pedal and master cylinder, but the return flow is greatly restricted, leading to a buildup of pressure inside of the caliper or wheel cylinder which locks the brakes on. Very common, especially in rust belt areas. I've seen the problem occur on both domestics and imports. |
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| JellyBeanDriver | Dec 22 2013, 01:35 AM Post #14 |
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Did you get this figured out? |
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| crankcase | Dec 22 2013, 07:41 PM Post #15 |
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I’ve been meaning to follow up on this thread and since I just got the problem fixed, now is a good time. I ran the car until I felt the brakes starting to grab, about 15 minutes of going around the block with a lot of stopping. I put the car up on stands and verified it was the two front brakes that were locking up. I also used an infrared thermometer on all wheels to verify which ones were hot. The rears were about 67 degrees F, and the fronts were over 220 degrees F. I was expecting the two brake circuits to be a front brake paired with the opposite side on the rear, but I’m almost certain the two circuits were in fact the front pair the rear pair. I did not really know where to start, but the fluid was quite dark, about like strong iced tea, so I decided to investigate the cheap and easy. What I read on line about old brake fluid did not really correspond to the symptoms I had. I finally read that water absorbed from the air will boil and make bubbles. Some wrote that state of gas would make the pedal spongy and at least one other person wrote that will cause pressure to build. I could only think of what happens when a boiler builds steam pressure. When I looked in the reservoir, the fluid not only looked to be the color of strong iced tea, but had the consistency of vinegar and oil salad dressing. I removed as much old brake fluid as possible from the reservoir with a syringe. There were actually two layers in the old fluid! The vinegar and oil salad dressing material was floating on the more normal, although dark stuff. After getting as much of the top layer off as possible, I started running clean fluid through the lines. I did the flush using old school brake bleeding method, but it did not really bleed normally. Sometimes I would get a good squirt and sometimes nothing, but I kept it up until the color became that of the new stuff (maybe a bit lighter than Wesson oil, or half and half apple juice and water). I took her around the block, and the same old symptoms reappeared. Remembering there were some dark particles in the drain bottle that the old stuff drained into, I decided to change the rubber lines since they were also rather cheap and easy, and could have been the source of the particles. The material was finer than ground pepper. The old lines looked fine when they were changed out, so I thought I would clean and grease the calipers. Each caliper was chalked full of old rusty, dark iced tea colored, vinegar and oil like liquid. I now think the particles I observed may have been powdered rust? I sprayed brake cleaner in the inside of the calipers until the liquid ran out clean. I greased the boots on the pad adjusters (don’t know the proper term) reinstalled, rebleed, and now the brakes work fine. I will put in new calipers ($35 per) and new brake cylinders in the back ($20 per) in the next month or so when there is more cash at hand, but don’t know about the master cylinder (suggestions, ideas?). I don’t know what the crud was in the fluid. Does water bound dot 3 float or sink? What else could have been floating? Thanks everyone for their thoughs; happy holidays. Edited by crankcase, Dec 22 2013, 07:57 PM.
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Had the rod unscrew out of the brake linkage before.
2:27 PM Jul 11