Touchy Brakes - not finding any topics on this.

[adam.w.ackerman]

I did some diging around here and on Google; I found one similar post about a week ago somewhere else that suggested the brakes sensitivity is normal but after driving my 89' for a week now I am thinking there is an issue and would like some input.

Higher speeds are better due to rolling mass but the brakes nearly lock up (Seems like fronts only) at about 1/4 to 1/2 pedel position. Easing up to a stop sign nearly puts you through the windsheild and if you are in a line it is even worse as you inch forward; there is no real graduale stop, it is either slowing down and hard stop! Below 1/4 pedel position everything seems to work as expected though I can feel some rotor warpage, the car has 79k origianl miles and I have no idea what if any brakes work as been done; the car is drivable though is we get ice things could get exciting. I am going to do rotors, front bearings, shoes, and pads for sure; I am considering also doing the capliers and will do a visual inspection of the rear cylinders and E-brake before I order parts. What I am trying to figure out is if the touchiness is normal or if I need to look at replacing the MC and/or booster as well.

Whats funny is my wife had to drive it home last friday from work and i was concerned about her and the Brakes, when she got home all she could comment on was how touchy the throttle was; probably a good thing I didn't see her driving it...

[jaywish]

You may just want to change the pads. Do the brakes pulse? If the rotors look ok and there is no pulse then you probably don't need rotors. If it does not pull then the calipers are likely ok.

I eliminated grabby brakes by switching to Centric Extended Wear Pads.
These pads offer a more consistent brake feel when the pads are hot or cold. Not as grabby/agressive as oem types when cold and they don't fade as much as OEMs when hot. They are not racing pads either which work really well only when they are hot.

Bear in mind OEM pads are usually designed to work best when cold as most normal driving only includes the occasional hard stop. So the pads really grab when they are cool and you push the brakes hard. The tradeoff is they don't continue to work as well (brake fade) when they are hot from repeated hard use.

You should take a look under the drums to see what is going on in there.

Just have to say if you are going to replace all those parts on the front you should consider going whole hog and upgrading to big front brakes.

The best upgrades I ever made were big front brakes, rear rotors, a police sway bar, very good tires and better headlights. Also Posi depending on the driving area.

[adam.w.ackerman]

good info, thanks! pads is a good place to start, I have a few projects ahead of this so maybe i will grab a set and throw them on. I will read up on the brake upgrade too.

[adam.w.ackerman]

olkay, i see a sticky about direct pad upgrades, thought I had seen a conversation about the Big Brake upgrade but now i cannot find it.

[DerekTheGreat]

My '85 did something similar and it ended up that the front calipers were trash. One day Ashley and I were driving along and then I could feel the thing starting to pull while driving. Too cold and no garage meant shop had to handle it. Perhaps just the guides needed lube but nothing gets me warm and fuzzy like knowing all that shit has been replaced. 79k miles doesn't mean much when the thing is 25+ years old.

I know people seem to rave about the big brake upgrade but the stock stuff in proper order has done right by both Ashley and I on our cars, and we drive them daily in all kinds of conditions imaginable, including panic stops. Not once have we ever had to swerve off the road to avoid hitting others. I think a lot of that has to do with pad type and rear brake adjustment. Replace all those rubber hoses (2 for the front, one at each wheel and one for the back which connects the steel line to the T fitting on the axle). Pop the drums off and have a peek-a-loo at the hardware & pads. At a minimum replace the rear wheel cylinders and make sure they're properly adjusted. Drum brakes can be tricky but what works for me is adjust the star wheel until you start to feel resistance in the clicks, then go two more clicks. Out of adjustment rears are typically given away by a high amount of brake pedal travel. Overly adjusted rears will lock up prematurely on gravel & wet pavement, plus you can feel it as you stop, like locked up trailer brakes or something. Also, you might notice the car doesn't roll easy when in neutral.

[jaywish]

I found that the big front brakes cut out my rotor warping. The rear swap to disk cut out the adjusting and more finicky nature of drum brakes.

The newer front brake systems are physically larger so they can take more heat and have a larger pad area. The stock stuff works ok as designed but Ford would not have bothered to put heavier components in unless there was a benefit. It is the opposite of decontenting.

So staying with just a pad change will give you time to plan your effort. See if it works, if not and you decide to rebuild what you have you have the brand new pads so all you have spent is the time to change them.

The big brakes are more expensive as you need to change more parts. Still with these old cars unless all the control arm bushings and suspension joints have been done they probably need to be done. If the car seems to be in good shape (drivetrain and lack of rust) and you plan on keeping it because it suits your needs then think about putting some money where you can get an improvement instead of just an overhaul.

The difference between a complete suspension & brake overhaul and an upgrade is not much at all. You just need upper arms and a spindles in addition to all the other parts. A full overhaul, if necessary, would include upper and lower control arm bushings, ball joints, hoses, sway bar links, rotors, calipers, shocks plus potentially other parts like an idler arm, pittman arm, tie rods depending on how old and worn it all is. Plus of course a GOOD alignment. A full overhaul will take you some time.

The price of used upper control arms and spindles does not amount to much in a full overhaul. The rest mostly involves just buying the newer model parts instead of the original model parts.

Some folks have been lucky to find donor cars that have recently been overhauled. This can save a lot of coin but you don't know if the parts were cheap china parts or not.


Some will say never use used parts but every part is used after the first time you roll down the street.

So if pretty much everything in the front end is new then the decision to upgrade is more difficult. If it needs an overhaul anyway, the decision gets easier.

As Derek said keeping the rears working/adjusted properly is more important then some might think. I know many folks like drum brakes. I often serviced them and still on some cars could not get the auto adjusters to work properly so needed to keep them adjusted by hand. Not that hard but still you got to jack it up, put some stands under it, roll around on the ground. Here a disk swap at the appropriate time, meaning if you have any other rear end work to do, is worth considering.

[Tiggie]

Too sensitive may mean a caliper or wheel cylinder is sticky. That's been my experience.

[gadget73]

Make sure the rear brakes are working properly too. If they are seized it seems overly grabby. The back brakes are also generally ignored and usually in bad working shape. Leaky cylinders, cylinders with or both stuck pistons, out of adjustment shoes, worn shoes, or shoes stuck on a wear ridge on the backing plate are all very common.

Sticky front calipers or stuck slide pins also make it worse. If you're changing front brakes, now would be a good time to re-pack the wheel bearings too if you don't know when they were done last. Its another thing that is often ignored until they are already bad. Would also be a good time to flush the brake fluid.

Personally I've never been impressed with the touchiness of the stock brakes, but they definitely get more shitty feeling when things aren't 100%.

[adam.w.ackerman]

So stock is touchy? It was way better in the way home today, morning and my run to lunch was very noticeable. Had not even considered that the tears maybe locked up. I will need to pull wheels but it will be a few weeks.


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[His Royal Ghostliness]

I know people seem to rave about the big brake upgrade but the stock stuff in proper order has done right by both Ashley and I on our cars, and we drive them daily in all kinds of conditions imaginable, including panic stops. Not once have we ever had to swerve off the road to avoid hitting others. I think a lot of that has to do with pad type and rear brake adjustment.

You also live in the flat lands. The place where the big brakes truly shine are mountain roads - as Jaywish said they can handle more heat, so they don't fade anywhere near as bad as the factory stuff does going down long grades. I once had to tackle some pretty steep hills around Pittsburgh area IIRC where roads were all of the switch-back variety so lots of frequent brake applies are needed, and with the factory brakes I found myself running manual 2nd gear quite a bit to help keep from gaining too much speed. They were nice pads and shoes too, just the whole system couldn't shed the heat fast enough.

IMHO the decisive factor whether to go big brakes or not is how much work the car needs. If it's just pads and maybe rotors then yeah, I can certainly see keeping the factory style brakes. But if she needs a complete braking system overhaul, plus the suspension is worn out, plus the tires are about dead, then it makes sense to just get the big brake and rear discs stuff - you're spending the big money anyways, might as well do an upgrade while at it.

[DerekTheGreat]

We took her car on a trip that had us rolling through the hills of West Virginia, no issues. It was fun actually but yes, I did leave it in D or downshifted to D when I wanted to maintain a speed. Once we got a stretch where no one was in front of us so I let it pick up as much speed as possible and then someone pulled out in front of us. Not cool but her front end didn't get mangled as the brakes did their job. Now bigger stuff should absorb more heat and I'm not saying bigger isn't better, just saying the stock stuff does just fine if you don't feel like having a Frankenstein car or you just don't feel like doing the work because you're lazy (like me).

Adam, the stock stuff ISN'T touchy. Like Tiggie and others have said you are probably dealing with a sticky caliper. Either the pistons are hanging up and/or the guides are all rusty. Usually most noticeable after a panic stop as that requires you to jam the pedal down harder which makes the pistons in the calipers travel further than usual which puts them in rusty hang-up land.. You could do what I did and buy yourself peace of my mind by spending the ~$250 on all new stuff for up front including new bearings & rotors and putting all that on.

As for the rear brakes, I watched a new chrisfix video on how to do/adjust rear brakes. The way he adjusted them sparked my interest; If you have the wheels off and the drums are free & new/resurfaced (ie no groove has been worn in the drums from use) you can adjust the star wheel until you feel just a bit of grab from the pads on the drum and call it good. I was taught that slight drag is the way to go some 13-14 years ago.

[adam.w.ackerman]

I am leaning towards sticky calipers, better today but still has a sudden hard stop now closer to half pedal travel. Either way the system needs serviced and it will included new soft lines as recommended above.

I am on the fence about the upgrade, I assume my turbines won't fit over the parts. As i intend on only having this car for a short time and hopefully move it on the another enthusiast in a year or so I am inclined to just repair the stock system.

[jaywish]

Yes if you do not need to reman the suspension and you are not keeping the car long term then replace is the way to go. Rotors would be a waste if existing rotors look good and do not pulse.

You could do a basic pad and hardware job and drive for a week or so before trying the calipers if necessary. You will be able to reuse the pads if you do the calipers a bit later. You might want to clean and repack the bearings at that time.

http://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo....434353&jsn=537

Do pull the drums and check all that out.

[gadget73]

Make sure the rotors aren't below discard though. I've seen them turned too thin. If they aren't damaged, they don't need to be replaced but repacking the bearings is general PM stuff.

I have the impression that the stock stuff is touchy, but I've been driving something that hasn't had stock brakes for a very long time. Whenever I do drive one with stock brakes, even in completely proper working order, I damn near put myself through the windshield the first couple times. The pedal feel is completely different. If you've only ever driven boxes with stock brakes, you may not feel that they are overly grabby unless something is making it worse than normal.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

As for the rear brakes, I watched a new chrisfix video on how to do/adjust rear brakes. The way he adjusted them sparked my interest; If you have the wheels off and the drums are free & new/resurfaced (ie no groove has been worn in the drums from use) you can adjust the star wheel until you feel just a bit of grab from the pads on the drum and call it good. I was taught that slight drag is the way to go some 13-14 years ago.

IMHO that is the ONLY way to properly adjust drums! Going thru the slot in the backing plate is just half-assing the job, you have no good feel for how much drag you're getting and at the same time you just keep on digging into the drum deeper. Now, the drum being worn is perfectly normal obviously, but it becomes an issue when you have to take the drum off for whatever reason - the ridge on the edge on the other side of the brake shoes is now pretty tall, at the same rate your adjusters are probably half-rusty at the exposed threads and will not wanna retract all the way in to allow the shoes to clear said ridge. Enter BFH and torch and lots of cussing, with a high chance of destroying shit what was not destroyed beforehand. On the other hand when your wheels are off for a tire rotation that's a perfect opportunity to check up on the brakes - in my experience drums that are being pulled for inspection and cleanup at least once a year are not very likely to get rusted solid to the axle shafts, which can be a major advantage if you're doing your own work and even more so if you're paying someone to do it for you. And by cleaning up the drums I mean taking a grinder to the ridge that's forming at the edge behind the shoes, and making sure that thing goes away completely. Amazingly enough all of this adds less than an hour of work per axle, so there really is no excuse for skipping that step.

I am leaning towards sticky calipers, better today but still has a sudden hard stop now closer to half pedal travel. Either way the system needs serviced and it will included new soft lines as recommended above.

I am on the fence about the upgrade, I assume my turbines won't fit over the parts. As i intend on only having this car for a short time and hopefully move it on the another enthusiast in a year or so I am inclined to just repair the stock system.

Sticky calipers do not typically cause touchy brakes, they cause brake drag. Brake drag is just as the name suggests, and it's very easy to notice - if you have to use more throttle to maintain speed, and you can smell hot brakes, and when you pull over you can feel the brakes being excessively hot, that's sticky calipers. If you ignore the condition, depending on its severity, you'll end up with cooked bearings grease and also actually weaker and overall less sensitive brakes.

Brake boosters can be a cause of touchy brakes if they over-assist, but that's typically associated with the pedal also "sinking" a bit on its own under your foot. If the pedal feels normal, yet the brakes are grabby, I'd say it's all in the wheel end wear items (pads, rotors, shoes, and drums).