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Fellas, I have an s-10 disc/drum brake and the brakes are dragging. I have looked over the calipers and they look ok, they are not releasing fully after you let off the brake pedal. They brake fluid looks a bit dirty or brownish. I thought maybe the brake fluid might have some grit and it's causing this problem? This all started yesterday. As you apply the brakes to come to a full stop they are fine and just before you totaly stop, you can feel them grab hard. And if you roll forward slowly you can feel them still gripping a lot. I drove home the 22 miles from work and brakes got hot enough to feel as you walked by them so i need some ideas on fixing this one so i can drive this thing again.

You may have some rust in the pistons inside your calipers, my old seirra pulled that crap on me but it was just a bad caliper and master-cyl.

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-Old ride-82 Luv diesel 5spd with some upgrades
-Past rides-82 Sierra, 78 Coupe De'Ville, 91 2dr Blazer, 86 RX7, 86 Porsche 944T (rear-ended and totaled)
-Curr. rides- 1970 Ford LTD 4dr, 390 4Bbl, 2nd owner! With a few Extras 00' Civic beater...

i had this problem with my dad's cadalac a few years ago... you need to do a major(2-3 quarts) flush on the braking system. if this doesn't help you need to rebuild the wheel cyls. either way you still need to get the entire system clean.

the cadalac had a chunk of goo that would let pressure in and then seal it off so the pressure wouldn't relive. i had to drive home w/ no brakes cause i had to undo the bleeder screw to get the wheel unlocked.

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i was thinking along those lines. nothing in the system has changed in months and all of a suddne they don't release. Thye will release if you let them sit for about ten minutes but that doesn't help when you are trying to drive. anyways, i was gonna start with a full system flush and see if that fixed it...

well try pulling the brake pedal back to the regular position after you depress the pedal, if it returns then maybe there is some rust in the calipers or your return spring for your brake pedal has lost it's elasticity

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-Old ride-82 Luv diesel 5spd with some upgrades
-Past rides-82 Sierra, 78 Coupe De'Ville, 91 2dr Blazer, 86 RX7, 86 Porsche 944T (rear-ended and totaled)
-Curr. rides- 1970 Ford LTD 4dr, 390 4Bbl, 2nd owner! With a few Extras 00' Civic beater...

finalman.. the last step before i flush out the system is to check the brake pedal travel.. remove the brake light switch and check pedal travela dn then re-installa nd adjust the switch and see what happens. as far as the pedal goes, it comes back up to the same position you started at, i just need to check to see if it is the correct one. thanks fo rthe tip... usually i can cover this stuff, but this one is a little odd in that it started with both front at the same time with no system changes...

both of the front calipers right... maybe that brown junk somehow eventually ate one of the seals in the master cyl. i'd just swap it out first... after doing what "Wheres all the luv at" suggested

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-Old ride-82 Luv diesel 5spd with some upgrades
-Past rides-82 Sierra, 78 Coupe De'Ville, 91 2dr Blazer, 86 RX7, 86 Porsche 944T (rear-ended and totaled)
-Curr. rides- 1970 Ford LTD 4dr, 390 4Bbl, 2nd owner! With a few Extras 00' Civic beater...

i plan on rebuilding the calipers, master cylinder and rear wheel cylinders as soon as the budget allows... for now i just need to ge tthe damned thing drivable... arrggghhhh!!!!!!

I've had this problem in the last three luvs I got running. The caliper leaks a tiny bit of brake fluid past the seal all the time, normally not a problem and needed to lubricate the piston/seal. Then the truck sits for a while and moisture gets to the outer portion of the caliper bore and the piston. Moisture+brake fluid = rust, so things corrode a bit. The corrosion makes the bore slightly smaller so the piston sticks.

Once they start to drag, the heat makes them grab on harder and harder. I've driven home with the calipers wired up hanging under the truck before because they stuck so bad.

The solution, take them apart, clean them, and put them back together. You should have a caliper rebuild kit handy, but I think I've only needed it once. Cleaning the rust and gunk off is 95% of the problem. New seals and boots don't hurt and it is easy to tear things the first time you pull them apart.

I think maybe you could try an experiment. Get the brakes to drag, then crack open one of the bleeder valves. If it squirts fluid and the pads release, then your master cylinder is not releasing pressure when the pedal comes up. If this is the case, It's probably either the master cylinder or the brake booster. I've heard the rod length can be adjusted to allow the master cylinder to fully retract, but I don't know if that's true.

If you don't have pressure in the lines, then the problem has to be with the calipers not retracting.

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You went there in that?!?!

i just got a reply back from raybestos saying the same thing with the bleeders.. if they retract on thier own, either master cylinder or hoses (??) so we'll find out soon enough... been nice driving the wife's plushmobile though.. hehe

Must be a commen problem with the s dimes because the s 15 on my family farm does the same exact thing.

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1980 Chevrolet LUV stock 1.8L longbed
1980 Chevrolet LUV parts truck shortbed
1983 Suzuki Gs550 Sportsman
1989 Nissan King cab P/u <totalled> 4/1/06
1986 Full size Chevy P/U
1993 Volvo 850 GTL

yeah, i think it might be... hopefully gonna get this fixed tomorrow..

Just to close this topic out... I got this fixed. I flushed the brake system out and that did not fix it, though it sure needed it. I pulled the calipers off and pulled the pistons out. They were corroded to hell. Mind you these were replaced about 45k ago. So I bought rebuilt ones (They are cheap) and installed them and bled the brakes. This made the vehicle driveable, but the brkes would still drag. I replaced the hoses (they were 7 months old) and problem fixed. So my recommendation would be to start with the hoses if they are worn.

Thanks to all for the input...