'01 Durango. Front discs, rear drums. Right front brake dragging bad when hot. Worse after brake application. After driving a bit (presumably some cooling is occurring), it seems not to drag as much.
Left front is fine - no dragging.
This morning in garage with front end off the ground - overnight cool, both wheels turn freely.

Several months ago, replaced rubber hoses with Goodridge braided stainless steel hoses, properly bled, no dragging, and worked fine. Could that have anything to do with it?

Maybe the caliper is hanging up when hot?

Wheel's off now, nothing obvious jumping out.

As always, TIA.
-Marq

It's most likely the braided hoses, or a seized caliper/caliper pins...I've had bad luck using braided lines on a daily driver..They just dont last..

my vote is the caliper

On closer inspection, the dust boot is expanded out and split in one place...

Maybe time for a trip to Napa for a caliper...

I'd go to Rockauto, but the shipping both directions for the core would kill the price advantage.

They can be rebuilt. It's just a seal and a boot. Compressed air gets it apart. Hone the cylinder and install the new parts.
Tons cheaper.

Having seen a brake hone before, my confusion was about the seal contact area being upon the cylinder wall, rather than on the outside of the piston.

Reman'd unloaded caliper was only 60 bucks. Had a pentastar logo on it.

Not sure if that will do the trick or not, as other auto issues demand attention. BUT, when I got the old caliper off, the slideways on the spindle for the brake pad ears did have some ridges on them. Placing the pads in position in the spindle without the caliper in place and putting forward pressure on them to simulate pad reaction to rotation of the rotor made them very difficult to move laterally because of the ridge on the top slideway. I'm thinking that was the real problem. So, I dremel sanded the ridges off, dabbed some grease on before replacing the caliper/pads. We'll see how it goes...

My 8 YO helper was not here to help with bleeding, so pumped it up myself, then used a short 2x4 wedged between the pedal and electric seat to hold the pedal down to bleed it. Crude, but seemed to work.

Same vehicle. Is the anti-rattle clip really necessary? It seems like it places a non-trivial off-axis load on the caliper, actually promoting a piston jam in the bore, because of the off axis load. I don't care about rattle, but I do care about dragging brakes. Seems like Ehrenberg said at one time that the clip wasn't necessary.

Any thoughts?

Unfortunately the durango has the most horrible factory calipers I've had the pleasure of owning...The piston eventually breaks off at the piston/pad contact areas and leaves the caliper needing some hard parts for the rebuild...And if you're going in you might as well change-out the hose so you're not back in there any time soon...

Here's a quick check : When the front brake locks up loosen the bleeder...If it shoots the fluid out and the caliper releases it's the hose...If no fluid comes out and it does'nt release the caliper is cooked...Good luck !!!