Recently my custom viper brakes have developed a low speed, light pedal pressure squeak. when coming to a stop when I'm less than 5mph and have light pressure, I can hear the pads squeaking. after a stop, I can also hear a squeak in the first few feet as I drive away from the stop.

But, with heavy pedal pressure, there's no squeak, and with no pedal pressure there's no squeak (other than the momentary squeak as I roll away from a stop)

however, I do not feel drag in the brakes. on even the slightest hill that looks and feels flat, when I release the pedal, the truck begins to roll immediately. I've jacked up both front and rear, leg pressed the pedal HARD, then stepped out and spun the wheels, and again, I don't feel any noticeable brake drag. the fronts I can spin and get 1-1.5 spins out of it before they stop. on the rear I don't get more than about 3/4 of a turn, but that's because I can feel the weight of the differential and driveshaft/transmission dragging it down, I don't feel or hear significant brake drag.

I've checked the master cylinder pushrod coming out of the booster, and it's NOT contacting the booster.

I also unplugged the booster from vacuum incase is was somehow "self energizing" the brakes.


it all would seem that I have no problem at all...but the squeak made me start looking for a problem that may or may not be there.

What I've noticed is that even after a 8-10 mile drive at 55-60 mph, and by downshifting to slow down for turns without using any brakes, I can come to a stop and still feel heat in the rotors. I can grab the rotor with my bare hand and feel quite a bit of warmth in it, but it's not so hot that it burns or is painful.


all 4 rotors feel the same, so Its not like I have a single caliper hung up.


...so, do I have a problem at all? or did the "new squeak" cause me to look for something that's not there?

Imo you need to turn up the stereo

If one caliper was sticking the truck will pull to that side when you were letting off pressure on the other 3 calipers and the sticking caliper is still clamping on its rotor you would know it.

On the brake noise:
http://www.hawkperformance.com/faq.php

I know some squeal is normal especially depending on pad material and condition.

But it's the heat that concerns me. Yesterday after a short drive all 4 rotors felt to be about 105-110 degrees, slmost at the point where they were painful to touch. After 5-6 seconds, they were VERY uncomfortable due to the amount of heat in them. And I only used them lightly in town, and hardly used them at all the last 7 miles, which was at 55-60 mph and downshifting to slow down for turns (no stops)

Ambient temps though were around 90, and the tires had quite a bit of heat in them too from the road surface

I don't THINK my brakes are hanging up or dragging, but I do hear squeak/squeal as I'm pulling away from a stop, probably for close to one full revolution.

pads taking up their running position away from the rotor, there is 'some' ""slack"" so they'll rattle sometimes as they release & get 'set'. I personaly wouldn't worry about it. Maybe set up some GoPro camera and see what you see.

Pick up one of these. Then you can compare the heat in your rotors vs another car that just completed the same drive. http://www.instrumart.com/categories/411...CFQXCKgodfVAAyA

I did compare it to my other truck, 4500 lb truck vs a 4000 lb truck.

the heavier truck is also an automatic, so on the same exact drive, I used the brakes a lot more on the auto truck.

with my stick truck, I downshift and barely used the brakes at all.


rotor temps were about the same. maybe SLIGHTLY warmer on the auto truck. but again...brakes were used a LOT more on the auto truck, I'd expect the rotors on it to be hot.

At the end of the day, I guess I just don't know if there's a problem or not

I did pick up some brake system grease, and will lube up the pins that the pads slide on, the pistons inside the calipers, back sides of the pads, etc. see if that helps alleviate the squeak I ear.

I know brakes can get ridiculously hot, and that's how they work, turning kinetic energy to heat...and that rotors can be hundreds of degrees under "normal" conditions during spririted driving.

but it just worried me that after I drive very easy in town, downshifting as much as I can and using the brakes as little as possible in town where I'm 35mph and less, often only using the brakes to stop from 5-10 mph, and then I can drive 8 miles at speed, and by paying attention, planning ahead, downshifting, I can make it all the way home, coming to a stop without touching the brake pedal, yet I can feel heat in them.


but, I know it's not a ton of heat. I lubed up the front brakes with grease and a lot of the squeal is gone, so until I smell pad material burning, or feel a wheel pulling, then I'll ignore it

My son drove across town last night to come over to my place to replace his alternator. He parked the car, we started pulling out tools and laying everything out when I noticed my infared thermometer in a drawer. So I pulled it out and shot a bead on the rotor, hub, wheel, etc.

Rotor was 140, hub was 160, wheel was 140 and this was after sitting for about 10 minutes while we gathered up beverages and tools. This was a casual, every day drive through city traffic. So, that area was easily as hot as the average engine bay.

Nothing to worry about.

With disk brakes, the pad always has contact with the spinning rotor - even if your foot is not on the brake. Drum brakes, on the other hand, have springs that pull the shoes away from the spinning drum when the brake pedal is not pressed down. If TC@HP2 did the same infrared thermometer test on a car with front drum brakes, I speculate that the drum and wheel would be a good bit cooler.

I figure engineers back in the early- to mid-60's were worried about disk brake pad wear when disk brakes were first being proposed for production cars. I remember reading that the engineers for the Corvette were concerned about disk pad wear because there was nothing to pull the pads away from the rotor when the brakes were not being used. They found that their fears were unfounded and the pads lasted 50,000 miles or so (from Karl Ludvigsen's book "Corvette: America's Star Spangled Sports Car"). If these engineers acknowledged that the pad is always touching the spinning rotor, it would go hand-in-hand that the assembly is also going to inherently produce heat - even if the brakes are not in hard use.

All of the newer cars I drive all have front wheels/brakes that seem very warm - even after a leisurely drive across town. So I think that you have nothing to worry about.

On heavy vehicle with small brakes, street temperatures can be fairly high.
The Ford SHO's run particulaly hot due to the above plus weight distribution.
So for comparison, on an old website (www.SHOtimesBrakes2.html) the following was described

"I ran some brake temperature tests and measured 385 F on my front rotors in rush hour traffic on a 45 mph street because of several sequential stoplights. (I have an 89 SHO with 10.1 in. rotors.) Another test with four back to back 60 mph stops generated 550 F. That's plenty hot, and about as hot as you would ever get on the street, even with an aggressively driven SHO. Even just one 80 mph stop generates 385 F of heat. However, one high speed 140 mph stop will generate up to 1025 F!!!"

Which is why a day at the track generally requires different pads than autocross or street use.