overheating brakes ?

[labman]

It doesn't sound normal to me unless you made several hard stops, just before. Are the brakes dragging for some reason? Chock it good and try jacking a wheel up with the engine running. With disks, there will always be a little resistance to turning a wheel, but not much. How does the brake pedal feel? It should travel a very short distance with almost no resistance. There should be at least a little play between the pedal and the clevis for the master cylinder.

I find it unlikely all 4 calipers would stick at once. No chance of a little power steering fluid in the master cylinder? Recheck any work done recently to the brakes.

If you don't find anything, post back with more details.

 

[Gary Allan]

They will be hot to the touch ...but not "sizzling" hot. There are typically residual pressure valves that keep 2 psi on the line.

 

[New]

The brake fluid level is ok.

The brake pedal feels a little mushy but it's been like this since I bought the car (this year, that is).

The area I'm driving in is quite hilly.

To give you a hint about the rotor temperature, I have kept the finger on the rotor for about one second and it felt sore for minutes. No blistering though (as I would have expected).

I'll check out more after work.

thanks

 

[Virtuoso]

Brakes get hot guys! Sounds normal to me.

Edit: Now, if your wheel/rim is too hot to touch for a short peroid of time, you've got problems. Been there

[ September 28, 2004, 02:54 PM: Message edited by: Virtuoso ]

 

[55Test]

Been there too. I overheated the brakes on my old 86 Fiero badly enough that there was nice billowy smoke coming from the rear rotors. My brother had an 86 Camaro with only front brakes, and after 4 or 5 stops from 90 mph, repeated one right after the other, there was major brake fade, never noticed any smoke though.

 

[paulo57509]

Disc brakes do get hot and they do drag; there's no mechanical means of retracting the pads away from the rotors.

Unless you're getting accelerated pad wear, burning smell, etc. I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[New]

Hi,

I've had the unfortunate idea to touch the surface of my Buick Regal's front brake rotors after only 12km (7.5mi) of city driving. They were hot! The rear rotors were hot too!
Is this normal? Or rather, what would be considered normal in terms of rotor temperature ?

tia

 

[kevm14]

I installed a set of Performance Friction pads in my 95 Camaro Z28 and in an effort to "bed" them, I went out and really got the brakes hot, let them cool, then got them hot again. I was actually driving around in 3rd gear, foot to the floor, riding the brakes. I wanted to get these suckers hot, partly to see what kind of fade I was dealing with. Well, I got them so hot I started to see smoke so I pulled over and did NOT pull up the e-brake (this is important). All rotors were smoking. The front passenger side rotor was glowing red! Then I immediately got back in the car, got up to 90mph and slammed the brake pedal. It ABSed down to around 30 very capably. Now those are good pads, and a lifetime warranty from Autozone, too (I also use valvoline dot 4 "synthetic" fluid).

 

[tdi-rick]

quote:

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Well, I got them so hot I started to see smoke so I pulled over ......

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which is probably the worst thing you can do. This is how you can warp rotors, boil fluid, etc.
The heat soak in just one concentrated part of the rotor is enormous. Best to continue driving without touching the middle pedal for quite a while till the brakes get close to ambient.

BTW, it's my understanding that all PFC pads are supplied pre-burnished, (meaning that you don't have to 'fade' them to boil out any residual resins) all that has to be done is bed/wear them to the disc for maximimum pad contact.

Sopme pads react adversly to heavily inducing 'fade', and prefer to be 'snubbed' up slowly in temperature. I destroyed a set of Mintex race pads years ago (M1144 IIRC), by throwing a brand new set of pads on for qualifying, thinking they could be treated like a previous set of Ferodo's that only needed some light applications for a few laps then into it.
I ended up having hardly any brakes for an entire race meeting, and it cost me a place when I ran up the gearbox of the third place car in the third corner. Ended up setting fastest lap that day recovering from the off, as I was carrying so much corner speed as I couldn't stop.

As to the original post, sounds normal to me. Now if they were smelling badly, maybe smoking a little, you have a problem.
Cars are heavy. It takes a lot of energy to slow down that mass. This energy is converted to and dissipated as heat. This is what you are feeling.


Rick.

[ September 30, 2004, 04:47 PM: Message edited by: tdi-rick ]

 

[New]

quote:

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As to the original post, sounds normal to me. Now if they were smelling badly, maybe smoking a little, you have a problem.
Cars are heavy. It takes a lot of energy to slow down that mass. This energy is converted to and dissipated as heat. This is what you are feeling.


Rick.

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Thanks a lot
You're right, the car is heavy and I had two more passengers.