Ever since I bought my truck, a 1990 Ford F-250, the brakes sounded bad when stopping. It would sound like I was grinding to a halt. I figured at first that it was just rusty rotors because it had sat for a while, but it didn’t go away.

After six months I finally got around to taking a look at the brakes. I took off the left front wheel and found what I expected, a rotor with a not very nice surface. The brake pads were almost new, though.

It was when I took off the right front wheel that I knew what was causing the noise. Compared to the left side, the rotor looked nice and shiny.

The reason it was nice and shiny, however, was because there was almost no material left on the outside pad.

When I looked at the caliper and pads I found the real problem. The caliper pistons had seized, and as a result, the inside pad had been scraping metal-on-metal for a long time, to the point where it had worn down the rotor to half the original thickness.

I had already bought new pads and rotors, but now I knew I also needed calipers. I’ll be posting How-To posts about replacing the rotors and pads in the next few weeks.

New blog posts every Monday and Thursday, plus pictures throughout the week on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!

Mechanical Malarkey T-shirts, hats, and stickers are available to order!

-Dan