1995 Chevy G20 Van with seizing calipers
 

SO! I was getting a lot of shaking when coming downhill in my van while braking. The first thing I thought was brakes and rotors. So I bought new front rotors and pads and installed them. Everything was all nice and tight, and I took it on a test drive. The first thing I noticed is that the van had to work harder to move, and made a horrible grinding sound as if the brakes were not disengaging. So I called the O'Reillys and asked one of their guys what they think, and thy told me to bleed my brakes. So I bled the front brakes and did another test drive and the same things happened, but this time I didnt have any brakes (depressed all the way to the floor, pumping it didnt work, and it barely was able to stop) which makes me think there's air in the system and I dont know how to drain it on my own. So a little more detail; I absolutely used a C-clamp to close the old brake pad over the caliper to get it shoved back down, put the brakes and caliper back on, pressed the brakes, and the same thing happened. The caliper pushed the brake and seized again. I read somewhere else that it might be my brake lines degrading, which would cause it to pump one way to the caliper but not back up.
Any thought guys?
Im a traveler with not a lot of money so I'd rather do it myself if I can.
P.S - If you need pictures let me know, and I can do that.

I'm not sure what is in a '95 brake system, but the master cylinder has to release the pressure when you let off the pedal. So, I'd look at that. Truthfully, i have more experience with motorcycle brakes, but the concept is the same. The fact that you can press the piston back in the caliper tells me it isn't what is seizing.

It's a 1995. That makes it 22 or something years old. When you take the calipers off to verify you didn't put a pad in backwards, check the bushings that the pins go through. If they are seized or stuck in any way, they will cause the kind of thing you are describing here. How many miles are on the chassis?

I would buy some reman. calipers, because they came with all the new hardware that degrades over time, and I think I paid less than 16 dollars each for the 2 I just put on my truck.

Yea, that actually makes a lot of sense, Im going to replace the calipers today and see if that helps any, then pull the master cylinder off and try and get that bled out.

I got a set of new pad for my 2013, and they looked right, and were the same shape. But when I went to put them on, they were too tight on the caliper. Turns out, there is a second part number that has thicker linings on the pad. The thinner one was what I needed. Swapped them at lordco and put it together......


Did you compare your new pads to old. Is the caliper floating properly....are the slide pins clean and not full of crud that would restrict the floating......etc.?

Just another thing that will cause that is the rubber brake hoses have a check valve that can stick and cause the calipers to not fully release. Had that happen to my 87 g30 twice in the last 17 years and the van only has 287,000 miles [lol , it does have at least that many since i bought it used ]. I think they were about $20 each side so if only one is bad rember the other side is just as old . Good luck and let us know what you find. P.s. If i remember right another guy had the same trouble from bad replacment pads from o'reilly's.