Hello guys and gals. I replaced brakes and rotors on my wife's 05 2WD Sport Trac about 6 months ago. Rotors were warped, grooved and shot to hell. I bought new rotors at O'Reilly and LLT warranty padsand bearings at Autozone. Everything went on smooth, I gave everything a good cleaning. Everything worked great and about a week ago the truck started making a weird grinding noise from what appears to be the front left wheel. Funny thing is, it started making the noise when I would apply the brakes. Naturally I thought the pads were gone and it was down to metal to metal contact. But that is not so. I checked the back of the rotors and they have no grooves or rough surface. The pads still have plenty of material on them. And today, it was actually making the grinding noise when the brakes weren't even applied. When I would tap the brakes the noise would stop or quiet down a bit. And it randomly makes the noise. IT not a thing where it always does it, only sometimes. I'm stumped.

Fred

 

Maybe something bad with the bearings? At first I thought abs sensor but that's unlikely if it happens when you're not on the brakes.

 

I'm wondering if one of the pads is loose and when the brake are not applied, it hits the rotor.

 

It is something obvious like a caliper bolt fell out? Did you torque and loctite them?

 

Yup, I used blue thread locker. I'm taking Friday off from work so I'm going to have a closer look.