Maxima brakes, mind boggled

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So my rusty but trusty maxima has been giving me problems. I can not figure out this problem at all.

About 2 months ago, my brother was driving it (its his daily) front driver's caliper locked up. Piston seized and it did not retract. Was able to get it back home and we swapped out with a rebuilt unit from AAP. New rotor and pads, bleed the brakes. Easy as pie.

Fast forward to yesterday. Exactly same thing happened. My brother pulled over and since he knew what was going on, he waited for the brakes to cool and got a bite to eat and for traffic to die down. So a few hours past and he started up the car and it drove fine. This morning, we went to move the car to my garage, it locks the driver front.

We just warrantied the caliper. I lubed up the slide pins and when i tried to bleed to brakes. NOTHING. No fluid comes out. I unbolted the line from the caliper and fluid came out nice and clean. Bolted it back on to the caliper, and it bleeds once thru the bleed screw and nothing else comes out.

This is confusing the [censored] out of me right now. While both from wheels were up on stands, i put the car in drive and noticed the driver side did not move, unless slight brake pressure was applied.

The only thing i can think of is, it could be ABS related as this does have it. I wouldn't think its a rusted line as the fluid came out of the line really nice and clean. Its a new caliper and its not the slide pins. We took it out on the drive and it is working as it should right now but i'm scared its going to lock up randomly.
 
Originally Posted By: Colt45ws
I would suspect some trash in the line or the ABS unit



Thats what i was leaning towards with the bleeding, I bleed them 2 months ago and no issues.

Originally Posted By: zvm77us
maybe a brake hose collapsed internally


Wouldn't this show up when i unbolted the line from caliper and stepped on the brakes? Fluid came out nice, clean and a good flow.





I'm ready to take this to a pro as its once of those life or death type of things but i have a feeling its going to be "no problem found" deals because it won't happen there. And he will charge me for a brake bleed.
 
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Originally Posted By: zvm77us
maybe a brake hose collapsed internally

Originally Posted By: andyd
On 20 yr old car I would suspect a bad brake hose


I would replace the brake hoses to the calipers.
 
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Google says.

It sounds like you have a brake booster rod that is adjusted too far out, please remove the master and wind it in about a 1/8 of an inch, that should fix it.

Something like this can be caused by a kink in a hardline. The kink allows pressure from the master cylinder through to the calipers, but won't allow it to release back to the master cylinder. The result is that with each pump of the pedal you are locking more and more pressure into your calipers until they lock up. Opening the bleeder screw releases this pressure, then it starts all over again.

Another guy fixed this by replacing the check valve.

All Maximas similar years.

Hope this helps.
 
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Suspect the hose.

Hose will probably collapse when brake fluid is very hot but will not collapse at cooler temperatures.

If it happens again- Loosen the bleeder...Collapsed hose will free up the caliper, and a stuck piston won't care if the bleeder is open or not.
 
Agree on suspecting a brake hose.

FWIW, I have seen them collapse in such a manner that fluid can be applied but not released and I have also seen them plugged so bad that No amount of force could move brake fluid through them.
 
Also, when I replace a caliper, brake hoses are factored into the job price and quoted to the customer.
 
Do you have a way to cycle the ABS pump while doing a complete brake bleed? It's possible that there is junk inside of the ABS pump. It's worth a shot and won't cost you anything but brake fluid.
 
I've never seen a brake line just [censored] out. But i did grab a new one and it bleeds a lot better and i'm thinking that is the fix.

I cut the old one just to see, it was actually holding fluid in it. Even tho it should have all drained out so i guess it was working like a one way check valve.

Is this one of those case by case things or do all 4 at once?
 
When I worked at a Nissan dealership, we had an older Quest van that did the same thing, ended up being the hose. I think we ended up changing all of them.
 
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