Houston, we have a problem - worst brakes ever?

JHZR2

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Joined
Dec 14, 2002
Messages
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Location
New Jersey
My auction win 91 350SD gets better all the time. Here’s why it drives:



It drives, and stops nicely. Not that I’ve driven it more than a mile since the auction dropped it to me.

But it needed tires. And my tire guy is literally like four blocks away. Jacked it up and we found this:

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How it even got that way, that consistently, both sides on the rear, is beyond me. How they didn’t destroy something in the rear driveline, if not the engine or transmission, is beyond me.

The car stops well because the front brakes are fine:

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Crazy stuff. I guess this is why the car was up for auction. I bet a shop wanted $1000+ to do the rear brakes and the owner decided to trade up.

Time for new hoses, calipers, pads and rotors. Hopefully no other surprises!!
 
most brake system are front biased right?
Yes. They have to be as that’s where the weight either is or will go when braking. Although I’m sure there are some load adjusting proportioning valves that could change that and maybe large industrial trucks it’s different but for passenger cars they are front bias.
 
Clearly the rust helped, but at one point someone would have had to tow the car (or maybe there's enough torque to break the rotors like that) or driven it after a long period of sitting to get them to separate like that.
 
Yes. They have to be as that’s where the weight either is or will go when braking. Although I’m sure there are some load adjusting proportioning valves that could change that

My 1998 Nissan Frontier has a load adjusting valve in the brake system.

I think the modern approach is "electronic brakeforce distribution", which is apparently a feature of pretty much all 4-wheel ABS.
 
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