Last week I swapped pads on my truck and found a surprise behind the rotor

I was doing a routine brake job on my F-150 in my driveway last Saturday. Pulled the passenger side rotor off and found a big chunk of rusted metal lodged between the backing plate and the caliper bracket. No idea how it got there, must have been from a pothole or something I drove over. The inner pad was worn down to like 2mm while the outer pad still had plenty of life left. That metal piece was basically acting like a spacer and pushing the caliper unevenly. Took me an extra hour to clean everything up and make sure the new pads seated right. Has anyone else found random junk trapped in their brake hardware like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

sarah_brown13d ago

Jumped into my old Tacoma's rear drums last fall and found a small pebble wedged between the shoe and the adjuster. I mean, it wasn't rusted metal like yours, but it definitely threw off the brake balance for a while. It's funny how little stuff like that builds up over time and you don't notice until something's actually in the way. Kind of makes you wonder what other random crap is hiding in there from all those potholes and gravel roads.

samward12d ago

Disagree @sarah_brown, I'd rather not know what's rattling around in there.