My car lately has had a problem with the brake pads. It felt as if the pads were extremely low and grinding the rotor. I looked at the rotor and saw deep grooves that proved to me that the pads were the result of this.

Driving home about 30 mins ago, and the brakes were horrifically loud (at lower speed), was on on the high way home, then I saw a puff of smoke shoot back from the car, another cloud came out and that was it. Got home and the car started to smoke, I thought. . . shiit somethings on fire. I run and get a bucket filled with water, and toss it thru the spokes of the sawblades. Billows of smoke come off of the wheel and behind it. . . . 5 buckets later. I jack up the car and take off the wheel. I look in the caliper and my pads are still pretty damn meaty. I look behind the hub to see the boot for the passenger side axle shot back.

Now its either regrease and be done or raxles. . . Going to check it out in the mourning, 2:32am, and was working on my girlfriends brakes all night.

Max maybe down for a few days . . . just ranting before I sleep.

 

Thats ..... anyway I suggest getting a good nights sleep!

 

wow dat sux mdeezy....i wonder where the fire came from though...if you splashed it with 5 buckets...musta been pretty big fire

 

there wasnt a fire but the axle was extremely hot, as well as the rotor. Its weird but I'm going to do a full examination tommorow and try to snap some pics.

 

ouch sorry to hear man. what brand axles were you running before? definitely get a good nights sleep first and then get raxles and get an even better nights sleep.

 

driver side was replaced with raxles, passenger side is still stock (as far as I know).

Since I know when the boot popped, I might just regrease and boot it and be done, depends if the axle is completely dried up.

 

You didn't hear any clicking on the passenger side while turning right? If not you should just regrease it up. Good Luck!

 

nope no clicking. I have been hearing a scraping like noise lately. It sounded like my brake pads were very low and maybe scraping on the rotor. My girlfriends car was making the same noise, and when I finished her brakes, she had zero meat on the pads, it was metal on metal contact.

I still have a good amount of meat on my pads. I'm going to pull the caliper and pads off anyway and see whats going on. . .

 

Well, I didnt even need to jack up the car to realize some of the damage occured last night.

Passenger side Axle seized up!!

I was going to move my girlfriends car out of the garage, and move mine in so I can jack up the car and take a look. I start up the car and start to drive forward but the car is fighting back, I get it moved forward some (more centered in the drive way), and the car wont go, after giving it about 4K in forward and reverse I knew the axle was done and wont give.

Dead axle, and car standing still . . . I should be sad but I'm not. I know how to fix it, I have extra cars I can drive to get the parts. I'm very thankful that the axle didnt seize up when I was driving home last light at 2:30am.

 

well done lol, good luck with the axle, gotta be a pita to do now though seeing as how you had your whole front end taken apart forever doing suspension stuff.... either way, im surprised you didnt warp what was left of your rotor by throwing 5 buckets of water on it.... either way, keep up the good work, and make sure to check your blinker fluid regularly

 

don't mind me

 

don't do that either.
Has anyone ever used one of the spilt boot covers to fit the cv boot and if so how did it work? how long did it last?

 

I had a shop put a split boot on my driverside cv joint on a Saab 9000 that I owned when I lived in Tx in 99. The idiot mechanic didn't put on all the clamps and I ruined my joint when I slung out all the grease driving fast on Houston highways. Not worth it IMO.

 

Its crazy I've been doing so much suspension related activies with the front end, this just add to the list. I've heard the passenger side is more subborn than the driver side. I'm going to get a lot of WD-40 an PB blaster and hope it goes smoothly. My car hasnt seen salty snowy winters so I hope that will make things easier.

I thought about it when I was throwing the water wheather I would warp or not, but the rotor wasnt what was extremely hot, it was really the axle. I dont car for the rotors at this point, they already need to be replaced, and Z32 rotors have been ordered and are on their way to go with my J30 calipers. So really the rotors just need to last another week or two at most.

going to go buy an axle now, and some wheel studs from the dealership.

 

Well, well well . . . .

As if the seized up axle wasnt bad enough, now the hub had bad damage to it. Its easily deduced that when I tried moving the car and was fighting what I thought was ONLY a seized axle, it was F**king up the hub and its bearings.

I got the passenger side axle off (those three bolts werent too hard to get off, but took some time with my big **** hands). The bearings in the hub looked like rocks from the ground.

Jeezz . . .

 

MAN! sorry to hear dude, I feel you on tearing the front end apart over...and over... hopefully you are at the bottom of it now and like you said you know how to do the work and have transportation to get the parts.

I'm not sure if I missed it, but did you have a torn boot that you ignored or did the grease just dry up inside a healthy boot?

 

yea it sucks. It was the driver side that was clicking for about a year then a few months back I finally put the raxle axle in. This passenger side gave me no warning it was going to pop.

I figured it all out and it boils down to this.

Having not gotten an alignment is probably the catalist of this. I noticed when examining the front end that the back of the rotor was scraped up badly. Passenger side had too much positive camber which leaded the bottom part of the hub inward. There is an opening in which the control arm was poking thru and cutting up the rotor. I dont know if when driving home that night it just got too hot and hit the clip on the axle and out went the greese.

I hadnt gotten and alignment yet because I was going to change my inner tie rods as I found the boots to be broken. When I decided I would wait on it my driver side hub started making a very loud noise. No point in aligning if I'm going to have to pull the driver side hub, and so I waited.

So now my car sleeps on the jack stands awating a new hub. Gotta call junk yards and see what I can find. They dont seem too expensive, I'm finding a lot of non-abs for about $50. Hopefully somewhere has an abs one for the same price.

 

That sucks.... My passenger side boot is torn, not to the point of leaking grease yet, but its visible. Ive got a new drivers side sitting in my garage waiting for my mechanic to call me back, but i dont know, i figure i could just re-boot the passenger one seeing as how nothing has blown yet. Either way, ive got 1500 miles on a blown boot with 0 grease left inside it, and it feels A mazing....

 

you must have some greese in there, I was trying to move the passenger axle around and it was bone dry and stiff.

I was able to make it about 10K in milage on a broken boot on the driver side, but I know there was a decent amount of greese left in there.