[Archived]

Oh my Jeff. Welding time! Or that’s the way a farmer/rancher would do it.

[Corey]

Yikes, good job, it could have gone real bad…

[Archived]

Cause? stuck caliper? what age coach?

[John]

I recently had mine appart. There is a bunch of thickness missing! What would do that and not effect pads? Soft metal in rotor? Bad abrasive brake pads? Curious Bob. By the way my rotors have 400,000 mile on them and have not shown anything like that,

[Archived]

650000 miles on coach a lot of rust on other components also by pad wear things are even on other side XLII. You can also see the non oil bathed style hub.

[Dick]

I presume from the picture we are looking at a brake rotor that has cracked into two halves? I’ve never seen that before (not that I have much if any experience with truck or bus brakes). I presume the bus rotors are similar to the ventilated racing rotors that we use on the race car … cast iron with the center vents cast into the rotor then the faces, circumference edge, and mating surfaces machined.

Speaking of brakes. Yesterday we took the coach for a ride. Fired it up, let it warm up and air up. Once warmed up I depressed the service brake, released the parking brake, and shifted to drive which is normally enough to give the coach to move from its parking place on almost level concrete. But it didn’t move. I thought may I didn’t properly release the parking brake (but the trans went into gear), so I put the trans in neutral, set the parking brake again, applied the service brake, released the parking brake, put the trans in drive, released the service brake, still no move.

This time I applied a little throttle and there was a noticable “clunk” from the back end of the coach and we moved forward. I presume the parking brake was hung up. The last time we parked the coach was on our trip back from Indy and we’d been driving through heavy rain for hours and it was raining heavily when I parked on the driveway near the road. The following morning in the daylight I backed the coach into its parking placed (no rain now) without incident.

Can someone explain what happened with the brakes. Is that common? First time that happened in the year we’ve owned the coach.

[Bryan]

If they stick like that back up it will unlock if they stick , I always backed up before I moved after driving in the rain, they can stick for a lot of different reasons ,

[tom]

Dick, that is not uncommon.

After driving in the rain, drag the brakes some while getting to your parking pad. That will help dry out the drum brakes. My understanding of what happens is the moisture in the brakes will cause a little rust to form that has to break loose.

As said, moving in reverse (if you have the room to back up) seems a little easier to break them free. It is not a problem with axles having disc brakes.

The first time it happened to me in our previous coach, it scared the stuff out of me when it broke loose.

[Archived]

It’s normal Dick, sometimes mine will do it after a wash job.

[Archived]

If there is any resistance to rolling forward, just apply the brakes, hit “R”, then back to drive and the problem is solved. I think just the shock of the driveline as you engage reverse is enough to break (brake) it free.

It’s a drum brake issue and I haven’t ever had it on disc brakes.

[Archived]

Its nice to learn what’s “normal” and how to deal with it.

[jack]

Last month we brought the bus to Prevost in Saint Nicolas (Quebec) for a level 3. I had them go through the bus with a fine tooth comb. On the brake front, they replaced all calipers, pins and pads and cleaned off all the rust. I saw what they pulled out and it was nasty. I think brakes are often overlooked when having service done.

[Andy]

That was ugly… Saw it first hand while at Jeff!’s shop!!

[AL]

Dick and Jean,

I may get in trouble for conclusion jumping, but your coach has Bremse-Knorr brakes. They are very well made and very serviceable. There is detailed instructions on repair and servicing the calipers. The discs, unless cracked or heavily scored have a minimum thickness, and are designed to be turned to true them up. The brake chambers are a life limited component, but unless the diaphram is leaking or the seal on the parking/service brake has failed they are suitable for service.

My reason for pointing this out is unless you just crave all brand new parts there is little justification for replacing everything. Too often it is reported a service provider has suggested or encouraged major part replacement. The parts beneath the coach usually aren’t pretty. They are dirty, rusty looking and maybe even covered with grease. But ugly parts are not defective or bad parts.

Perhaps when our coaches are brought for service we should ask for proof the parts are in fact bad, are not repairable, and the only option is to replace them. And maybe we need to apply the sniff test. How often for example is every brake assembly at every wheel going to go bad all at once requiring extensive and expensive replacement?

[Archived]

Jon,

You’re not wrong about main dealers. Why repair something when you can swap it out? It was said before about billing for excessive amounts of time, as long as the “issue” has gone away, the invoice gets paid with no questions asked. In the case of replacing rather than repairing, a Landrover main dealer wanted to swap out a whole transfer box on my Defender a few years ago. The actual problem? A $5 gear and $150 in labour to do the repair. Landrover wanted $2500 for a new transfer box.

Mental note made about Prevost brake assemblies likely being repairable.