Calipers keep seizing

2001 Tahoe LT with 230,000 miles

Back in October my right front caliper seized. Luckily I was within a mile of home so I got it back to my driveway. Replaced the caliper with a new one from Autozone, and was back on the road. I had to get it fixed quick, otherwise I would have gotten Power Stop parts to do the entire brake system as I've been planning to do. That's also the reason I didn't bother replacing both calipers - this one was just going to keep me rolling until I could afford to get better parts.

Fast forward to January 20th. Two hours away from home, I start having trouble getting the truck to go forward without giving it extra gas, and it's pulling to the right. I made it to a tire shop who wanted $1,400 to put what must have been solid gold parts on all 4 corners. No thanks. They managed to free the seized caliper in the process of inspecting it, so I made the drive home using the brakes as sparingly as possible (on the DC beltway, no less). After I got home, I got the failed part replaced under warranty by Autozone, and also got a left front caliper, both front rotors, and front pads from there. Again, I had to get the Tahoe back on the road again.

Now, after 2 days of nonstop rain, I went to take the Tahoe to the store and noticed it was steadily losing power, but not pulling to either side. I was close to home again this time, and when I got home the passenger side was smoking again, but I couldn't tell if the driver's side was smoking/stuck also since it was dark outside.

When I replaced everything 3 weeks ago, I checked the right side brake hose to make sure it wasn't kinked, knowing that it could keep the fluid from going back to the master cylinder upon releasing the brakes. I'm going to take a look at it in the morning. Any thoughts on what else might be causing them to seize? I noticed the caliperI replaced back in October had formed surface rust rather quickly, and now both have it, but don't know that it matters much unless the pistons are somehow getting rusty too.

Did you bleed the brakes at all four corners when you did the calipers?

Maybe replace the rubber hoses to the calipers. They could be starting to collapse or internally fail.

No, I only bled the front, but I have since resolved this. It turns out that only the passenger side caliper was seizing. I replaced hoses on both sides, and after bleeding both calipers several times (had to troubleshoot a leaky brake line to hose connection on the driver's side), the passenger side was still stuck. I didn't realize it until I went to tighten the lug nuts with the wheels still off the ground, and used the method of spinning the wheel while holding the lug wrench stationary. The driver's side wheel spun with no problem, but the passenger side wouldn't.

So I took that caliper's slide pin/bolts out, compressed the pistons with a C clamp (while the caliper was still on the rotor/pads), and immediately noticed that the caliper was able to compress more than when I attempted the C clamp compression with the slide pins still in place (which I did a couple of times during the week just to get the truck to make it to work/home). Then I took the caliper completely off, cleaned off all the grease I globbed on when I replaced the caliper last month, and applied a new layer of grease on the pins and anti-rattle clips.

That was on Saturday. Since then I've driven it about 300 miles and the brakes have worked just fine.

I should add that 80 of those 300 miles were spent towing my son's Mustang after he broke down far from home. I had no problem stopping. Of course, with that load the truck had a hard time getting up to highway speed from a dead stop and going up hills. But it still moved better than when the caliper seize was at its worst.

The pic is somewhat misleading. I have aftermarket keys up front and it normally sits at about 39" front and rear, so the tongue weight isn't lifting the front as much as it seems in the pic. That's also on an incline, and on level ground the front end was slightly lower than what you see here.

This was one time, however, that I wish I had put new Nivomat shocks on instead of Bilsteins.

Thanks David. I still need to do replace the rear brakes, so I'll definitely bleed all four when I do that.

I wish that was my land. I see in your sig that you were at Andrews, so you may be familiar with the area that the pic was taken from. It's out in Loudoun County VA near Leesburg where my son's girlfriend lives. That was the first time I had been there, and it's beautiful country out there.