Brakes Pull To The Left

[turbo nasty]

Double check the slider pins in the front brakes from broke or bent as well as the way the brake hardware in teh rear is put to gether...sometimes the springs and such may seem correct but are not.

 

[lmt87]

long shot...... cross rotate front tires. radial tire pull.

 

[charlief1]

long shot...... cross rotate front tires. radial tire pull.

That would be a very long shot. A tire pull would show up without hitting the brakes.

 

[eviljay]

I'm going through the same thing. Not sure on the g/n's but I'm looking at replacing my proportioning valve.

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[hawkfan]

I'm going through the same thing. Not sure on the g/n's but I'm looking at replacing my proportioning valve.

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I'm gonna look at all of the easy stuff first (rotate two front tires, check tire pressures, caliper guide pins, etc), but the proportioning valve might be an issue. My car still has the original iron valve. It only biases front to back, but I've read that it can cause some strange brake problems like nose diving or even pulling to one side or the other when it's not operating properly.

 

[hawkfan]

Removed caliper pins and sleeves on both sides and lubed them with bearing grease. Put anti- seize where the caliper meets the spindle just in case. Both calipers moved freely after I put everything back together. Rotated the front tires. Found a loose tie rod sleeve on the driver side and tightened it. Took it out for a drive today and it still pulls left when braking. I found out the problem is intermittent. Sometimes it pulls left hard enough to turn the steering wheel and sometimes it doesn't pull at all. When it did stop 'straight', I would step on the gas with my hands off the wheel and the car would consistently pull right. I tried a few 'panic' stops and I could smell the brakes. Got out and saw the passenger side brake was smoking. I'm beginning to think my passenger side brake hose is the problem. I replaced it a few months back with a ss flex one, but the symptoms are there.

 

[dartguy340]

You mentioned the brake hose, I know you put on new ones but maybe you have a defect and here's
my story. On two different vehicles, the last one being a chev pickup about 2 years ago, the brakes were
"dragging" in the front, right side only, after stopping for a stop light. I figured it was the caliper going
bad so I pulled off the wheel, had someone step on the brakes while I was spinning the rotor, it stopped
right away, but, it was locked up, and I could not turn it until about 3 minutes had gone by, and then I
could spin it by hand again. I took off the brake hose completely, tried to blow through it with no luck,
so I tried blowing air thru it with an air hose, it was acting as if it were plugged solid. I bought a new hose
and that took care of the problem. After talking to a couple of shops, they told me that it is more common
than I think. Try doing what I explained here to check them out...

 

[hawkfan]

You mentioned the brake hose, I know you put on new ones but maybe you have a defect and here's
my story. On two different vehicles, the last one being a chev pickup about 2 years ago, the brakes were
"dragging" in the front, right side only, after stopping for a stop light. I figured it was the caliper going
bad so I pulled off the wheel, had someone step on the brakes while I was spinning the rotor, it stopped
right away, but, it was locked up, and I could not turn it until about 3 minutes had gone by, and then I
could spin it by hand again. I took off the brake hose completely, tried to blow through it with no luck,
so I tried blowing air thru it with an air hose, it was acting as if it were plugged solid. I bought a new hose
and that took care of the problem. After talking to a couple of shops, they told me that it is more common
than I think. Try doing what I explained here to check them out...

I tried that while I had the car on jack stands yesterday and saw no issues. The only thing I couldn't do was have someone try to turn the wheels with the brakes applied since I'm a one man operation. The one issue that sticks in my mind is when I was using a c-clamp to push the passenger side piston in. It was pretty hard at first, then I heard/felt a slight pop, and then it compressed easily the rest of the way. The fact that these are the second set of calipers to have this problem makes me think it's the hose. Maybe I damaged it during installation.

 

[dartguy340]

Can you disconnect the hose at the caliper and clamp it into a
catch can or container to catch the fluid and then pump the brakes
once. Just to see if fluid is coming thru the hose. Check other side also.

 

[hawkfan]

Fixed the issue today. I'm a little embarrassed to say what it was but I'm still learning here and maybe my mistake will help someone else. The pull was caused by loose wheel bearings. When I rebuilt the front end, I also replaced the rotors. I went a little too loose on the spindle castle nut when I put everything back together. That tiny bit of play was all it took to make it pull while braking. I tightened both spindle nuts and all is well. Thanks to everyone for their help/suggestions. All the info helped me to methodically eliminate all the possible causes and find and fix the problem.

 

[dartguy340]

Glad to hear you got it fixed...have fun!