Ford Excursion Brakes
Well I bit the bullet and did the front brakes on the ‘X’. I had started to have the standard vibrating pedal that most of the F250, F350, and Excursions have. I had a set of pads put in under the pre-paid service policy which amounts to the lowest cost pads without turning the rotor. Well about 20k miles later the pedal and truck would vibrate pretty bad when braking in the 50mph down to 40mph range.
Almost like runing over 2×4’s. Pretty bad. So I did the Autozone order for some Rotors and PFC Carbon pads. Total cost was about 190 bucks. The nice thing is the truck is 4wd and the rotors just come right off. The operation went smoothly except for these messed up spring clips that keep the pads from ratteling. These were the things that could make someone crazy, but after calming and thinking about how it all goes together I figured out the trick. Easy after that. All you will need to do the entire job is a 21mm socket, a breaker bar/torque wrench, and a screwdriver. One other trick since I was tossing out the rotors was to just wedge a screwdriver into the pads and rotor to force the piston back into the caliper. No need to mess with a clamp! When all done said and done took about an hour to do it with most of the time figuring out the pad springs. Brakes so far feel much better, no pulsing and braking seems much improved. One thing to note, lots of folks using the Cryo-treated rotors that are like 3x the cost, and I can’t quite figure that out. My application is not hard towing so might not affect me the same way, but I can be happy tossing out a bad rotor at $60 each…
Sandy on 18 Jul 2008 at 4:30 pm #
Since I was asked off line (BTW IT’S OK TO POST) what the trick was with the spring clips on the pads.
Pretty simple, if you understand how the springs work, the brake pads have each 2 small holes where the ends of a tension spring fit into them. 2 Springs go into the holes across to the other pad. The idea was to keep the pads apart and off the rotor I guess. Well these things are a pain in the butt, but not that bad after figuring it out. The trick is to put the pads on your leg (the curve of the pad fits just right). So you have both pads in parallel sitting on your leg, put the springs (2) across the pads. Now grab both pads together and carefully squeeze them together so both pads are touching compressing the springs. NOTE YOU MIGHT WANT TO HAVE GOGGLES ON AT THIS POINT. Don’t let the pads slip or slide they must state parallel and aligned to each other. Keeping tension flip them over and slide them into the upside down caliper (which was previously removed). Keep them parallel and aligned as you slide them in while also keeping the spring clips pressed against the bottom of the caliper. Wiggle each pad into position (lifting up the yet another springy clip one each end of the pads) and you should be good. It will take a couple attempts to get it, but the main point is put springs in, compress pads and keep from sliding apart.
Wear gloves and goggles and several lame attempts to get it going caused the springs to fly out.
Sandy on 29 Aug 2008 at 9:24 am #
Quick follow up on the job… I’m not dead due to failing brakes so all seems good. The Autozone rotors and PFC Carbon brakes seem to be working very well, not vibration at all and seems to have much better stopping power. I will catch the rears soon, but a definite difference over the glazed old rotors and pads.