Kevin:
Rich is correct, in fact this is the way most stock brake calipers work. The only ones I know of that actually have 2 sets of pistons to squeeze the rotor are performance aplications. I haven't personally had any rotor warping problems on my dak, but it sounds like the slides on yours could be coroded. this causes the caliper to not float properly and the inside pad will do all the work. If you pull your brakes apart pull the whole caliper off and chekc the slide pins, they should be on the inboard side of the rotor, make sure to grease them up real good when you replace everything too.
-Bryan
'99 CC Sprt 5.2L 5spd
Removed muffler
open air cleaner
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"Wisotzkey, Rich <Rich.Wisotzkey@gd-wts.com>" said:
Kevin,
Welcome to the list. Unless they changed the design, what happens is this.
The entire caliper floats on two pins. When the piston applies pressure
(through the pad of course) to the rotor, the opposite side of the caliper
applies pressure due to the backpressure of the piston (from the brake
fluid) pushing against the caliper from it's side. Hope this helps.
Rich - Ashburn, VA
When I pulled the calipers off to replace the rotors at 40k, I was VERY
surprised at what
I saw. Now I don't claim to be an expert mechanic, but I have done brake
jobs on a handful
of cars before, and I've never seen anything like this before - and that is,
the outboard brake
pads are FIXED!! Every other brake system I've ever seen is designed such
that the rotor
is sandwiched between the inboard and outboard pads, which can both move and
squeeze
the rotor from both sides. NOT ON THE DAKOTA. The outboard pad is fixed,
and is not
free to move at all. I might be out in left field, but to me it looks like
one of the following
happens in this brake design:
(a) The inboard pad pushes out against the rotor, and the rotor BENDS
slightly outward from
the applied force, until it comes into contact with the outboard pad. The
rotor warps from the
constant flexing (as the rotor turns, the location of deflection movies
circumferentially)
...or...
(b) The inboard pad pushes out against the rotor, and the fixed outboard
pad just sits there
and does absolutely nothing. The rotor warps from intense heat and pressure
applied to only
the inside of the rotor.
In either case, it looks to me like the front brakes on this truck are
essentially ONE PAD per
wheel, and that the rotors are bound to warp due to this setup. When I
replaced the rotors on
my truck at 40k, the pads had plenty of meat left on them - but the outboard
pads had
considerably less wear than the inboard pads. This tells me that a
combination of (a) and (b)
above probably defines what happens when we press the brake pedal.
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