Chevy lover for life

Hi Mikey,

Um - with me being here and you being there, there is no real way for anyone to diagnose a brake problem without actually seeing the problem.

I have been a fleet mechanic for almost 20 years and I have numerous hours of experience diagnosing problems - some of which were on that particular platform.

My nearest guess - and mind you this is just a guess, would be that you have never had your fluid replaced in your braking system and you now have a problem with a hose - which could be deteriorated on the inside - yet look perfectly normal on the outside or one of a dozen other problems.

From a mechanical standpoint, a 1998 Chevrolet Lumina is almost bullet proof - that is as long as you fix the little problems before they become big problems. Probably one of the best years - for the Lumina period.

Since you took your vehicle to a mechanic to be repaired, wouldn't it be logical to take the vehicle back and complain. After all - we all have good and bad days and maybe your mechanic over looked something.

A brand new pad and a brand new rotor. When you clean up the sliding surface for the pads and you clean up the area around the wheel studs and apply a small amount of anti seize or dielectric grease to the pins - should work just as good as a brand new cars brakes.

One fault or failure of most mechanics is that they get into a hurry and they push the old fluid back into the reservoir and not open the bleeders and remove the old fluid from inside the brake system.

Brake fluid is Hygroscopic - what that means is that it attracts water and the older it gets, the easier it boils, due to the fact that as the moisture content goes up, it's boiling point is reduced - hence when you apply pressure the pad gets hot and transfers heat back into the caliper and then the fluid inside of caliper expands and it refuses to contract until it once again cools.

At times, it will attack the rubber hoses and then the rubber becomes soft and it will allow the fluid to go into the caliper - but not return to the reservoir once line pressure is reduced.

The anti lock portion of the equation should not come into play unless all the fluid was lost in the line. At that point, most of those vehicles needs to be connected to a TECH II to pulsate the brakes to pump up the system to make the brake pedal come up off the floor. In your case - this isn't your problem.

If it was a 2002 and up Impala - I would tell you that you had a bad brake rotor. Those bi metal rotors on the new Impala are junk - even new out of the box.

The mechanic should have removed the protective film from the surface of the rotor with brake cleaner before he put them on the vehicle and nothing - other then the bedding in process should make the brakes smoke or stink.

That is the other thing that most new mechanic's today forgets to do.

Take the car for a road test and bed in the brakes.

About two dozen hard stomps from different speeds and about 4 or 5 miles of driving is what it takes to do a real brake job. Not too many people really knows how to do it and it is a lost art.

All the Nascar teams beds in all their brakes before they ever go on the track!

You can take a look at your brakes by taking off the rear wheels if you want to - but if you do not have any experience as a automotive mechanic and if you had to take it to a mechanic in the first place to have them replaced, looking at them probably isn't going to solve the problem.

You wouldn't know what to look for and if you didn't have a full set of tools - you couldn't do a repair on them anyways.

Take it back to the garage, complain that the brakes are not right and have them repair them before a major problem occurs.

So that it doesn't sound like I am talking down to you - I will relate a little story. I was working on a Corsica for a family member and put new brakes on it and did not have the tool to wind the piston back into the caliper and just pushed it in with a C- clamp. We drove it about 5 miles and it got so hot that the plastic hub cap burned off the wheel.

Everybody makes a mistake once in a while!

ss_services

Do not use WD-40. Use anti-seize or white lithium grease. You do not need to undo the E-brake. The two bolts holding the caliper to the caliper bracket ARE the slides. No further dis-assembly should be required. The calipers will not need to be depressed if you are using the same brake pads. That being said, Chevy Lover For Life brings up two very good points...#1 Your lumina will require a specialty tool to retract the caliper, and #2, his point about a possible bad brake hose.

mikeythe613

Thank you guys for the replies, I called my mechanic today and he said hes going to take the caliper off and see if it seized or broken tomorrow. As for the break fluid im not sure if this is relevant but last summer I changed the front caliper for the first time ever and ended up loosing the break fluid so I had to replace it all brand new(is that new enough to avoid these problems?). The rim gets so hot that when I poor water on it, it sizzles... I took the rim off again today for a better inspection and it seems as if the inner pad is sticking and the outer one isnt, I didnt have a good look last time.

I will keep you posted and let you know what happens tomorrow, thank you guys so much this forum is very helpful, I have been posting on the Calgary Car Forums Beyond.ca and they are horrible. The rudest people I have ever had contact with on the internet.

Chevy lover for life

I'm sure that your mechanic will get it right the second time.

The use of anti seize is for the bolts that goes into the bracket that holds the calipers on.

In the case of Chevy Trucks, the pins goes through a boot and rides on a bore inside of the brake caliper bracket. The boot goes bad and the pins seize inside of the bore and the caliper refuses to slide and it wears out one side of the brake pad pre maturely.

At the same time, tbe brakes gets hot and the pads fade and the result is poor brake - or little feel and stopping power.

They had a lot of problems with disc brakes on the rear of Lumina's and the best thing they ever did was go back to the drum. The drum brakes probably last twice as long anyways.

The flushing of the system when you lost the line was probably the best thing to happen to it. My recommendations is to flush the system every time you have to do any maintenance.

But the best way to flush it is to pull the brake fluid out of the master cylinder with a one man brake bleeder - suction type tool and then pull the fluid through the lines until clear. One wheel at a time.

Just loosing the fluid in one wheel will not flush out the entire system - because a lot of brake fluid is stuck inside of the caliper.

mikeythe613

Well the mechanic said that one caliper is sticking a bit, its not a huge problem but its wearing the pads. I cant afford the new caliper right now they are about twice as much as the front. The bushing in one of my front calipers is shot too. Ugh this car is causing me a lot of problems. going to take the wheel off again today and see what I can lubricate lol.