Dear Gents
I am new member and am in need of your combined experience. I have a 2000 Td5, SLS, ACE, automatic. I live in Costa Rica and bought car for wife as we have 2 river crossings to our house that can be a bit hairy at times. Out of necessity I do all the mechanic-ing. Car is far too complicated for local mechanics.
What I need brainstorming with is too much brake drag. I get parts sent from UK. Recently I replaced front hubs, rotors, pads, rebuilt calipers, new master cylinder, new braided brake lines, flushed whole system sparkly clean. I have a Nanocom scanner for bleeding etc., Replaced ABS modulator last year.
I can turn wheels by hand, but no spinning. They heat up and smell when driven. I have taken apart many times, redone calipers- everything seems fine. I've read dozens of threads and tried everything (except the right thing).
I would appreciate any help no matter how seemingly simple or complex.

 

Ok . You put in new rotors callipers and just about a new complete system ,

Question - How long ago ,were these installed ?

1 - Heat ! its suppose to be hot !! now since you put new rotors and pads in ,you will have a perfect surface match 100% contact , more contact = more friction =more heat ....

2 - Smell ! depending on the type of pads , ( Metallic , Asbestos , Ceramic ) Asbestos tends to smell , and since you have the newest of everything ,your stopping distance will be shorter now...

driving it a bit after the river crossing will dry off unwanted water that could cause callipers to seize up from time to time

i need your explanation of Brake drag ... ( just to make sure we are talking the same term )

 

I can turn wheel with firm hold. No such thing as spinning-even an inch. I can feel the pad contact. It feels smooth and even. I installed rotors and pads about a month ago. I've driven probably 100 km since. Pads are EBC 'green stuff' from famous four-supposed to be heavy duty.? I'd be delighted to find out this drag was normal, but just seems excessive. Is there a way to measure and verify?

 

You have an issue, you should be able to slightly hear the pads dragging against the rotors, you should not have to force it to roll.

 

Is your transfer case in N or are you tring to spin the whole drive line?

 

I've only had trans in nuetral not transfer case. I'll try this.

 

don't worry that's a good start ... now lets start the elimination process...

1 - check rotors against the older ones , its not suppose to be same thickness on the ends...

2 - check the calliper slide pins ,lubricate with a little grease and re install
( if the piston is not moving back this will cause the drag )

and is the drag the same on all the wheels ??? with lever in N or off the ground ..

 

Did you check the emergency brake? Maybe that is hanging up causing the drag.

 

yes the new rotors are thicker-not sure what you're after. Thaecaliper pins were corroded and stuck when I took it all apart. Cleaned them up-replaced one set, used high temp grease-so I believe that is good.
So now with trany And transfer case in neutral -with my best spin I can get a half turn of free spin after I release for front wheels and a bit more than full free turn for rears( didn't replace rotors on rear). Maybe this is acceptable???Tried to get feeler gauge btwn pad and rotor-could not.

 

one of my suspicions were ,,,that you got the wrong model rotor disc... i had this issue before where they sold us a thicker rotor ...( don't know from which model ) so then you have no release clearance ...when the callipers move back( well the really cant in your case ) .. so technically your brakes are always activated...

when you were replacing at the re mounting stage , did you have to force the callipers on to the rotor ??? it was suppose to go in freely and bolted in comfortably ... i would swap the rotors back first ....