It pulls while braking? i would check your brake hoses and if so DO NOT drive it if the hoses are leaking. Limp it home if need be.

 

You need to determine exactly what the fluid is. Gear oil definitely has a distinct and nasty smell to it.

If it's gear oil, the first thing to check would be the breather tube - it's possible that it clogged and pressure built up forcing gear oil out of the axle tubes. If so, I'd get new seals, open up the diff, check that everything is moving smoothly and replace the seals. You might get away with checking that it's smooth and putting new gear oil in it, but if you've got your hands dirty and the diff cover off, you might as well do it right.

Edit - Definitely second what EEVEE said. If it's brake fluid, you have a major problem and I'd highly suspect something was done incorrectly when the brakes were re-done. In either case, you don't want to be driving it with bad brakes or insufficient gear oil with the former case being the more dangerous of the two.

 

 

If you smelt the "burnt clutch" smell and felt tugging, you almost definitely have a stuck caliper. If it was hot enough to cause smoke, you should take that very seriously and have the caliper replaced, or at least inspected. The problem is, they often -unstick- when they cool down, so it can give you a false sense of security. If it gets hot enough it can melt the brake lines, and that is why some folks here jumped to that. But regardless, a stuck caliper can literally burn the vehicle to the ground, so don't put off resolving the problem. By the way, stuck calipers often show up after moisture (rain, water crossings, etc). Calipers for XJs are cheap ($20-30), widely available, and the job to replace them is relatively cheap (even at a shop). I had to do an emergency one here where I work (it stuck on the way to work) and the shop charged about $100 for parts and labor. Which was pretty fair for around here.

When a caliper is dragging the pads at higher speeds, the temperatures can be immense. You don't notice them when you are moving, because the airflow is keeping it contained (temp wise). But when you slow down, that is when the smoke starts to billow and you start to really smell the problem. To give you an idea of how hot they can get, I caught mine in the act once, and it was smoking so bad I was sure things were already on fire. I drove right into a coin-op car wash and began spraying down the rotor/caliper. I thoroughly sprayed it down 3 separate times. Even after the 3rd full spray down, I could not touch the rotor, it was still extremely hot (like a few hundred degrees hot).

 

I completely agree with Jordan - smoking from the brake area and pulling are sure signs of caliper sticking.

I had a frozen caliper on my 00 TJ (which used the exact same brakes as the XJ) on an Easter Sunday years ago - I felt the pulling and I pulled into a drive-thru and noticed the smoking. I ended up limping home and put a new caliper from Autozone on it (it was like $10 at the time - shockingly inexpensive) and did it in my driveway. It took about an hour or so and I never had a problem with it again.

You will probably need new pads and a rotor (you should replace them anyway just to be safe) since the heat will quickly warp the rotor and the pad will have worn excessively and possibly unevenly.

I would avoid whatever parts were used 15k ago since clearly the quality is questionable.

 

Also, if the brake fluid boils you'll completely lose the brake function.

 

You all were spot on with the seized caliper. I was able to limp it home over 3 days and took an afternoon to fix it.
The extra fluid appears to be my radiator leak getting worse. Everything had dried up be the time I picked it up and once the brake smell dissipated I could smell the anti-freeze.
Thanks for dealing with my freak out.

 

Anytime man, that's what this forum is here for.

Do the radiator replacement - there's no need to be driving around with a bad radiator when it's not a terribly difficult or expensive job. A lot of guys on here have used the "Autozone special" (aka the "el cheapo") radiators and have had success with them. With the notorious cooling problems and the very real risk of engine damage due to overheating, it's definitely important to get it corrected.

Edit - However, no need to freak out - just do it as soon as you can.

 

When replacing the radiator, dont bother messing with the drain. Just pull the lower hose off the water pump and let it drain into a big bucket.

Dont miss.

 

Harbor freight or your local home improvement "big box" will have plastic cement mixing trays for <$10 - these work awesome as a drain pan for the radiator and make it much harder to "miss".