Broke my wheel (56k warning) (long story warning too)
 

Warning: long post, I'll probably ramble on and on about the story.

So I was headed home from school one day and I'm coming up to a stop sign so I put on the brakes and I hear a loud <CLUNK, grind grind grind grind grind grind> from my front passenger wheel. I could tell the tire wasn't flat, and everything was ok except when I braked, so I decided to just continue home and engine brake whenever I needed to slow down.

So I get back to my apartment 20 miles later and only had to use the brakes I think twice, but still heard the same noise. I get out and see that I'm missing the lower bolt (out of 2) that connects the caliper to the anchor plate. This allowed the whole caliper to rotate upward and crash into the wheel whenever I applied the brakes, hence the awful noise I was hearing. Who knows how the bolt came out, but it's gone.

So I go to Autozone to get a replacement and they say they have no mounting hardware like that and to just go to a hardware store to get the bolt. I said yeah right and went across the street to Advance Auto Parts. The guy there matched a bolt to the one I brought from the other caliper. Everything was fine except it was probably about 3 threads too long, but he assured me it was ok for where it was going. (mistake #1)

So I go home and replace the bolt. The head sat flush on the anchor plate, and I made sure it was good and tight, but I used no lock-tite (mistake #2!) Well this seemed to fix the problem, so I go about my regular driving.

The fix lasted 4 days, when I'm coming up to another stop sign and hear the same damn noise <CLUNK, grind grind grind grind>. So I get out and check it out: you guessed it, the bolt is gone AGAIN. :15: I'm like 5 miles from my apartment, down one road with no stops, so I decide to drive it back, again just engine braking whenever I needed to slow down.

I get back to the apartment and park it, get out and notice the truck is leaning a little to the passenger side. I walk over to check it out: my truck was sitting on the wheel! No air in the tire at all! I change the wheel out with my spare and notice all the cracks on the inside of the wheel from the top of the caliper grinding on it. Each time I hit the brakes must have put a new crack in the wheel. Pictures are below.

Here's the wheel, you can see how the caliper ground a nice groove in it.
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b9...r/DSCN0700.jpg

closeup of the wheel:
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b9...r/DSCN0701.jpg

closeup of the largest crack from the inside:
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b9...r/DSCN0702.jpg

Got a new wheel from a junkyard for $35, and it's not too bad. Once I had the tire mounted onto the new wheel I took a look at the cracks on the other side of the wheel:
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b9...r/DSCN0703.jpg

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b9...r/DSCN0704.jpg

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b9...r/DSCN0706.jpg

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b9...r/DSCN0707.jpg

In all, I found 8 cracks like these on this side of the wheel. OOps!

Oh well, It's all fixed now, with the new wheel, and a replacement bolt from Village Ford! Glad that's over!

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to share.

sucks it ruined your wheel. seems liek someone else had the same problem.

have you done previous work to your brakes?

Yes, but I only changed the pads on that side, so I didn't have to loosen the anchor bolt, just the slider pin. I don't know what was done to it before I bought the truck...

damn i hear about this happening more and more. i replaced my rotors and pads a couple months ago... i better go check and make sure my bolts are tight!!

that sux man. IF you ever just want 4 new wheels, just let me no. I need to sell my stock ones. I promis there are no cracks that i no about.

You went to village ford? There is a village ford in dearborn, you didnt go there did you?

Sure did, my dad works at Ford there in Dearborn, so he picked one up for me. But I think i should be set with my wheels for now, I'm lookin to save up for some 15" MT classic II's or something similar....maybe just some black steely's or something. Appreciate the offer though.

Ouch... nice stress fractures there... tire didn't have to be replaced?

i just recently did my brakes and about 3 days later the drivers side caliper came loose. I was driving around and i started hearing lots of like rumbling and clanking comming out of the drivers side front wheel. So i stopped and checked it out, Sure enough the bolts were backing out. They were so loose i could turn them by hand. The thing that pisses me off the most about it is that i cranked those mother ****ers down when i changed the pads. But like everyone else is saying, we all are hearing more and more about it.......now i check my claiper bolts every week, so far nothing but dont wanna risk it with the rock crawlers. Im not interested in replacing a rim over something like that!

i live about 3 minutes from the main ford plants in dearborn. My dad works there to. right off oakwood blv. Village ford used to be our main place where we did business untill our sales man left and we fallowed. small world

i used a 3ft breaker bar to tighten the hell out of mine when i put them back on, and i used some blue loctite. in hindsight, i think i should have used that red "high heat" loctite but i havent had a problem since the install. this makes me nervous though... expecially with my new wheels. i'm going out to check them right now before i forget heh.

you would think that there would be a recall....

Would it be okay to use blue or green strength locktite on the caliper bolts?

ouch

for owners that don't put on locktite? :shrug:

this is a first...using loc-tite on caliper bolts. every other vehicle i touched i never used it, just torque'd to spec. everything was fine...

did the caliper bolts have loc-tite on them to begin with?

the replacement bolt from the dealership has red/orange-ish loc-tite. I'm not expecting any more problems, but will still be checking up on it.

I'm just glad I don't have nice wheels and only had to buy a replacement stock wheel!

That sucks!! That also happened to me last year when Ford Dealer forgot to torquen the caliper on the front passenger side and several block later.. I got the same result to my Alcoe wheel !! I wrote a post about it on gen-edge last year. Ford Replaced my wheel, free car rentals and free oil change! I was still pissed off after that because I just relized the Alcoe wheel came off a 2004 FX4 level II on their lot because it was dirty!! I thought it got dirty because of the handling and the shipping!! WRONG! it was "USED" by the time I found out, it was too late because it was like few weeks or so later when I found out that it was switced and not a new one!! that really sucks!!

I had my brakes done at a garage.. long story.. but the passenger one was really loose after a 10min drive..
I had a free tire rotation and balance the next day so I paid them 10$ to take both sides apart and loctite them.

now this SUCKS. good FYI...