I was driving down to Lake worth on I-95 crusing in the left lane, and all of the sudden something got thrown up under my car from the road into the left wheel, and I stepped on the brakes. I'm still unsure of what happend, but either the front left caliper locked up, or whatever got thrown into my wheel made my car suddenly pull hard to the left. I was pulled halfway into the median/emergency lane in about a seconds time, and SOMEHOW managed to downshift fast enough to control my car. Luckily nobody was next to me when I shot over, otherwise there would've been a huge accident. After this happend, when I was parked in the emergency lane after getting my bearings, I turned the wheel all the way to the left/right several times, and heard horrible squeaking, almost like metal on metal (I later found out the sound seemed to be coming from the inner brake pad). I inspected everything, and I couldn't find anything wrong. After turning my wheel a few more times, the noise went away. I have 300zx calipers on the 12.6" rotors with the blehmco brackets. I was able to drive my car off to the turnpike, and get it home. I took the wheel off, the brake pads out, and inspected everything last night around 2am, and found nothing to be wrong. All the pistons seemed fine, tie rods were fine, axles were fine, ball joint was fine, I checked all the bolts, etc. Everything was perfect. The only thing I could think of that could be causing the noise is the fact that mabye a piston somehow is getting stuck (a piece of rust inside the piston itself, or a piece of debris in the brake fluid), and holding the brake pad against the rotor at a weird angle, and when I turn the wheel, it's making it rub. This still doesn't make sense as to why I pulled to the left, although I think it's because my brake caliper seized. I'm lucky I was able to regain control of my car, or else I would've been thrown into 3 lanes of oncoming traffic on I-95. My next course of action is going to be probably bleeding the caliper, and seeing what comes out. If that doesn't work, I'm going to rebuild the calipers. Any other advice is appreciated.

 

What the heil...

 

I co-sign your "what the hell" and raise you a "damn your lucky dude"...

 

It wasn't your brakes. They don't just lock up while your crusing down the highway. Sounds like you ran over something. Glad your OK.

 

Prolly a pebble or something.
But that would have been bad if someone was next to you

 

Astounding, but how does a pebble make the car pull to the left like that...

 

scary stuff.. i wonder what the chances of something causing that are...

 

Theory: pebble gets kicked up in the road, bounces on your rotor and gets wedges between the rotor and the brake pad/caliper?

Hmmm...but then you'd have a huge scratch in ur rotor...Anyone else have any ideas

 

that happened to me once, i was driving and bam the steering wheel yoked so hard i lost grip of it, as the average dumb driver would do i slammed on the brakes and slid down the slippery road and smashed my wheel onto the curb....curb rash ftw...a few days later i changed the calipers for some rebuilt ones.

glad to hear everything is okay for the most part...do you have ABS?, how were the 300zx calipers when you bought them.

 

You should be happy you go so lucky!

 

Glad to hear you and that new 3.5 didnt get hurt.

 

Glad your alright indeed! Try not to run over anything else, keep that newly swapped car in one lovely piece

 

In other news, I just blew my tranny.

 

Seems like either the pistons siezed or something got caught up in there. Did it drive home fine? I doubt a "pebble" could have done this. Very odd..

 

. . . was it out ther door already? still on your original 4th gen tranny?

 

Good to here your ok, I95 is usually busy.

 

have no idea what else could have been other than the suggestions above, but glad you escaped unscratched from a potentially dangerous situation. Very lucky!

 

Play the lottery, and send me the 20% cut for me suggesting it...

 

Maybe you ran over something fairly large with only one wheel and that wheel was still in he air when you hit the brakes, causing it to lock up before it came back in contact with the road?

Happens to me all the time, although it's not nearly that bad with my fearsome and awe-inspiring stock calipers...

 

damn man...sound crazy, glad you're alright

 

That's weird... I am still trying to figure out how a pebble can do that... it sounds more serious than just a pebble being wedged somewhere in your caliper or something.