Brake locking up: how to fix?

[gregski]

And for the mean time, pick up a set of wheel chocks from the Rv section of Walmart and chock your trailer while parked on a hill.

Whoa! Ditto this. I would never park on a hill and expect the truck's e-brake to hold it. You can get a pair for less than $10. I always keep them in the truck. If something ever happened and you had to unhitch the trailer away from home, you may need them.

[cornrickey]

Remove the calipers, drain the fluid (needs to be changed anyway) jam golf tees into the lines to keep water out and use it for the weekend.

[MLA]

Do you have a pic of the outboard pad? Mainly interested in its thickness compared to the inboard pad. Also, how does the suspect sides pad thickness compare to the other side?

There will always be a slight amount of pad to rotor drag. Too much causes the heat and excessive wear.......but.....you have to make sure that the opposite side is not the real problem. Too little drag, as in a caliper thats not clamping, causes the other side to wear faster. This can make one point to the side thats hot and has the most wear.

The two most common causes of excessive drag are frozen caliper slide pins and collapsed or kinked brake line, not allowing the pressure off the piston once the pressure is off the actuator.

So before condemning that side, take a close look at the other side.

[Cigars n scotch]

Whoa! Ditto this. I would never park on a hill and expect the truck's e-brake to hold it. You can get a pair for less than $10. I always keep them in the truck. If something ever happened and you had to unhitch the trailer away from home, you may need them.

Ok let me explain a little bit here so ppl don't jump to conclusions. I don't park on hills with no brakes, my driveway is sloped and I chock it with a cinder block. The ramp I go to has a hill and I can't pull to the side to clean up on it so I park at the top or pull in a parking space. Don't worry I am not relying on my ebrake. I am smarter than that.

[Cigars n scotch]

Do you have a pic of the outboard pad? Mainly interested in its thickness compared to the inboard pad. Also, how does the suspect sides pad thickness compare to the other side?

There will always be a slight amount of pad to rotor drag. Too much causes the heat and excessive wear.......but.....you have to make sure that the opposite side is not the real problem. Too little drag, as in a caliper thats not clamping, causes the other side to wear faster. This can make one point to the side thats hot and has the most wear.

The two most common causes of excessive drag are frozen caliper slide pins and collapsed or kinked brake line, not allowing the pressure off the piston once the pressure is off the actuator.

So before condemning that side, take a close look at the other side.

Thanks Mike. The wear on both sides is pretty even and there's still good thickness to them. I didn't snap a pic but I can this wknd. You amaze me with the bank of knowledge you have!!!

[MLA]

If the wear is fairly even left and right and inboard to outboard, then i would look upstream to the main lines and coupler. Make sure the short hose between the trailer and folding tongue is not kinking when the tongue is in its normal position. Brake pressure would be enough to pass past the kink when the coupler compresses. When the load is reduced from the coupler, the kink would prevent the the pressure bleeding off the calipers, keeping them applied.

[Whitey]

Looking at the holes in the rubber boot I'm sure the caliper is rusted. The only thing you can do is replace the caliper. I had 2 bad calipers early in the year. I tried bleeding the brakes, but it never lasted and the started sticking again. They can be rebuilt, but likely the piston is rusted and pitted if it is sticking. I tore mine apart and bought some parts to rebuild, but both of my problem calipers had rusted and pitted pistons. I bought new 2 new calipers, and fixed the issue.