'69 F250 - FL caliper frozen, rear drum rebuild

[scottberry]

Learning as I go so excuse the terminology mistakes.

Picked this truck up for $500 so it needed some work. One issue was brakes all around so digging in it was apparent that the fronts were dead (pistons on both sides cracked and rotors looked like the grand canyon). At the same time the rear drums were going to get rebuilt. Long story short somehow the actuator links got left out of the left rear and it was leaking all over. At the same time the front left caliper started sticking. I pulled the caliper from the bracket and it all looked ok, I flushed the caliper again, etc. and put it back on. I dug in to the rear and found the issue and got a new actuator and links. Someone else did this rebuild with me so I went over the whole thing and it looks good. Put it all together, found the gaskets for the axle flange (oy) and decided to reuse the heavily used lock tab washer but it all looks ok redone.

In sourcing the parts it was hard to find the exact items and somehow I ended up with a caliper that had different sized ports for the hose/bleed and combined with replacing the hoses in the front (yes, everything from the hose forward is new) I had to do some creative swapping of parts. In that I moved a bleed screw from the port it came in to the other side. I assume this is ok but now it has me thinking that this is what is causing the caliper to freeze. I read about the link adjustment from the pedal to the booster and messed with that a bit but wasn't entirely sure what I was doing. However when I crack the bleed screw on the stuck caliper it frees right up. So it seems like it could be related to that bleed screw swap, something in the line or some sort of check/return valve issue. The parts in the engine bay (master and booster?) are pretty rusty but I put a new gasket on the master.

Test driving it back before these issues were apparent it was ok for some of the time. Not sure what changed but it then started sticking in the front. Eventually it took a while to get home because any touch of the brakes would lock the left front for a bit.

I haven't bled the whole system since this situation and the repairs today on the rear so is it possible that there is air or some other issue with the lines? I am going to flush it all again, just got rained out today and was disappointed the front wasn't related to the rear issue nor the playing with the pedal link.

[HIO Silver]

OEM 69 discs or did someone do a swap? There are two versions... before serial number M80,001 and then a "newer" version. I don't recall being able to swap the bleeder to the "other side"....

I think it would help if yo posted some pictures of what ya got....

This is Flyboy's "early" and period correct discs on his F250



Factory diagram..



So... does yours match?

[scottberry]

Thank you. If you told me a difference I could tell you off the top of my head, but I'll have to go take pics otherwise. That diagram seems to show the "hub" outside of the rotor? If so that is not what I have... but I do have an early serial I think, E270XX. I notice that many places don't always designate the serial cutoff for their parts and I think in some cases that is the issue.

I'll get pics as soon as I can, supposed to rain non-stop for the next few days.

The issue I recall is that the hoses I ordered originally (the old were all cracked, was going to keep the calipers) were too small to screw in to the port on the caliper. It took a few tries to get the right hose from rockauto that matched the old calipers and the one new one I already got. However when I ordered the 2nd caliper that did not fit the hose port but I was able to swap the calipers and/or change the bleed screw port around to make it all work. Honestly I don't even recall the series of events.

This is the one caliper I got:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000C4 ... detailpage

Hoses:
https://www.rockauto.com/catalog/morein ... cc=1495111

The second caliper:
http://www.cardone.com/Products/Product ... 228&p=rock

Looks right, from what I can see, left and right. But I think I had to swap them because one of them had the wrong size inlet for the hose. So by swapping them and using an old bleed screw (or something like this) I was able to make it work. So really the question is would swapping the bleed screw and hose cause an issue?

Everything all fit together properly (although the carrier had a different size bolt configuration so I had to swap carriers too) and seems to work, just that the front sicks. If I release pressure it is ok, so that is why I feel like there is some check valve or fluid path in the caliper that is causing the issue.