robsjeep

1990 XJ. Both front brakes are dragging.

Calipers about three years old, name brand rebuilds. at the time the rotors were not turned, but new pads were installed, but real cheapo ones.

Later, like last month I had rotors turned and put in new high end pads and they did not drag, I made sure of that because they had problems before with gouges worn into the pad guide rails. So I had the guides fixed by MIG weld filling in of the worn spots on the pad guide rails. Then ground perfect smooth, everything nicely lubed. every thing nice. Test, no drag, pad retracts nice. and the guide pin/bolts all cleaned, along with the *****, and lubed, no binding. Then 500 miles I later raise jeep off ground for some other unrelated service and note to my disgust that the front brake drag so much so that with wheel removed it is very tough to budge the hub to rotate at all by the wheel studs. It is way too much drag. The drag is consistent thru the revolution thus it is not a rotor warpage problem . So what is the problem?

I did burp one of the caliper's fluid bleed screw, to assure the master is not providing residual fluid pressure, result was no change.

I assume these jeep calipers retract by the resiliency of the rubber piston seal ring, correct? No springs, or clips are required to retract the pad when the brakes are let off, correct?

Any ideas on how to remedy these?

thanks in advance for any help!😊

agreen

Good diagnostics there. You eliminated the possibility of hydraulic failure. A pinched hose or improperly adjusted brake pedal can cause this, but by opening the bleeder, you ruled that out. So the only thing it can be is either the slide bolts or the caliper itself. Since they're fairly new, try greasing the slide bolts.