I went out of town this weeked, and on the way back had some problems. I was about 3 hours north of Dallas, came into McAlester, OK. I hit the brakes to slow down for the redussed spped, and could hear a grinding noise coming from the drivers side front wheel. As I slowed down more I could hear a clunking and more grinding. I pulled off into a gas station, and took a look. I looked from the outside, and could see the brake dust was rubbed off in some places inside the wheel. I crawled under the truck to see what was wrong, and saw the brake caliper just hanging there. Both the bolts were gone, dosn't look like they broke off, but that they fell out. A small groove was ground into the whell, but it should be fine. It was about 6:30, so I called my Dad, and he ran around town to see if he could find some new bolts. He didn't know what size he needed, so he grabbed an assortment, and headed up. He got there around 11pm, and the biggest one he got was just one size to small. He had seen a truck stop just down the road, so we headed their to see if we could find what we needed. Well, he thought it was farther back than what it was, so we went 35 miles back towards Dallas, and turned around. Found it closer to town, and went inside. They were out of the size I needed. So we drove back, I got the stuff out that I could, and secured the truck as well as I could. Left it at the gas station. We got home about 3am, and I had to work today, and couldn't take off, mainly cause my boss is an *** hole, but thats another story. He is on his way up their now with my Mom, he has the bolts, so he should be able to just bolt it in, and bring it back. Hopefully nothing else happens, and hopefully no one messed with it.

There was no locktight on them, but they had been set to factory tourge settings, and had been checked a week after I put the lift on. The passangers side was tight as hell, so I am not sure how they would have come loose.

 

This has happened to me twice now... On the pass side.. Once at 70 MPH (fun) and the last at 25... Both times ate through the rim and locked up my wheel!

 

did they have lock washers?
you got off lucky if they just bolt back up and a grove in your rim is the only evidence....

 

if you dont use locktite this is what happens, thats why they put the red locktite on the bolts stock

 

Which bolts are we talking about: the caliper to bracket bolts, or the bracket to spindle bolts?

 

this happend to me on my MT bike lol ... its got discs

 

The bracket to the spindle.

There was no locktight on the stock bolts, and it didn't call for any in the instructions, or in the procedue to change the brakes in the Haynes manuel.

 

OMG...the same thing happened to me like 2 weeks ago...it was passenger side at 30 mph...the bracket to spindle bolts came out and shoved the caliper up into the rim....still warrantied so i got new pads and everything, which are too small and will be fixed when i go to pick up the new rim...

 

if you're talking about the lock washers that are on your rotors from the factory those do absolutely nothing....the only reason those things are on there is to hold the rotor on while the truck is going down the assy. line and it's being tossed and turned and slammed around...

i looked into that and consulted a ford brake engineer who is a real good friend of mine...he actually had a hand in designing the brake system for the rangers, explorers and escapes...

 

Same happened to me as well on my driver side - only lost one bolt though, but still dug into my rim - Pretty horrible sound when you are driving

 

****... i dont wanna drive it now

 

that's wild it's happened to so many of you. I didn't put any loctite when I took em off last time, looks like I'm gonna hafta tear it down again... dammit!

 

Yeah, it was a wicked sound. I had sped up to go around these guys who didn't know what the left lane was for, and were doing about 40, then I had to gun it up to about 100 cause there was a semi who understood the way it works. I got around them, and slowed back to 70, and then more as we came into the town. First it was just a grinding, then it was loud clunking. I still dont know how that thing stayed on and just didn't fly off.

 

a similar thing happened on my 99, but it was the caliper bolt that fell out. luckily i caught it before it got too bad.

 

this happened to me on my 01, and i need to check it on my 99 before it happens to it too


so whats the fix? does locktite work on it?

 

locktite does work well...i would also suggest cleaning the head of the bolt after you have tightened it down with locktite and everything, and running a decent size bead of RTV over it and letting it dry. This won't necessarily hold the bolt in place, but it will dissuade backing out and can also double as an indicator since we all know that this is somewhat of an issue

 

the problem with the loctite, is that it is deactivated by heat, and it actually becomes a lubricant. so after some hard braking, it may not hold the bolt at all. the best thing ive found to do, is to clean the threads and hole well, and use anti-sieze. it keeps the bolt from siezing up in the hole and has kept my bolts in the hole as well.

 

Yeah, that is weird.

I'm glad it hasn't happened to my truck (knock on wood).

 

looks like whomever has removed those bolts before has a problem

i had to remove them inorder to change out my rotors, and on the 99, i changed the rotor and the spindle

 

My Dad got new bolts from Ford, and they had a coating of Blue Locktight on them from the factory. This is something that I never even thought off, and could have been much worse. Truck is home though, and and everything is fine now. Hopefully this dosn't happen to any one else.

 

which one is the blue locktight?

 

not to sound harsh but just because you put new bolts in there does not mean that this can't happen....

My spindle to bracket bolts have never been removed, so on top of factory installation they had 2 years of aging to do...and yet they still came out....

don't let new parts or lock-tite give you a false sense of security. The best thing you can do is make a PM (preventitive maintenance) checklist. Look over the forum real well at other problems people have posted and then look at the amount of other members who replied with the same issue or something related, and check those items on a somewhat regular basis....every couple of months or so....

I personally pick a day about every 2 months or so and i'll just spend the day going over the truck from front to back looking for anything out of the ordinary....I especially recommend this for the front suspension...IFS has more moving parts than your typical front suspension....therefore more opportunities for something to come loose or break...

people like ne3lz and rwenzig would be more able to elaborate and get technical with this as i am fairly new to rangers but preventive maintenance stays the same with all vehicles...some just require you to look in different areas or maybe look a little deeper

 

Isnt it the one in the red bottle....?.....

 

I normaly do, and the last time was a week after the lift went on, which was back in April. Everything was good and tight back then, and this coming weekend was gonna be another run though. Now that I have the lift on, I am making sure I watch everything closer, since there is added stress from the lift, the cranked TBars and the larger tires. I know it isnt a perminet solution, but had they had it on their, the problem would probley have never come up.

I belive the blue is the pressure activated one, Ford uses alot of that.

 

blue is removeable by hand. a blowtorch assists in removal but is typically not necessary. red thread locker is permanent, and requires the use of a blow torch to deactivate for removal. when in doubt, use red. and get a blowtorch. i have 3