Jasemgee

Haha. Once it got towed to the mechanics the wheel wouldn't spin at all apparently. A sticking caliper is defiantly what happened, and the current theory is this: - Breaks got slammed on. - Caliper got knocked out of alignment from the force. - Caliper caused friction on the disk, generating heat. - A few hundred kms later enough heat was generated to get the grease boiling and bubbled out - Without the grease, the bearings themselves started generating friction and melting - Once the wheel had stopped moving, the bearings welded themselves to the hub. Yeah, just a heads up: never underestimate the destructive power of a stuck caliper.

Was from 70kph (really stupid speed limit for somewhere with lights in my opinion). More concerned about the caliper than the bearings, as that was where the heat was coming from. When I stuck my head under the car to have a look at the break lines and see what else was damaged I did notice hot greese leaking out of the hub. Not too concerned about the leak causing any more of a problem since the entire wheel needs to be cut off and replaced, but it's really weird considering the breaks and shocks were replaced 3 months ago and everything was checked out and the car was running sweet. I haven't even taken the thing bush bashing since its last service so it's really got me and the mechanic scratching our heads as to how the hell it happened.

The car is a 97 Landcruiser and the story goes that I was driving through the city (hate doing it in the Landcruiser, other drivers forget that it's a very heavy car) and collected a poor young lady's car when she tried to stop at a yellow light in front of me. I had to put both feet on the breaks to avoid ending up right on top of her. Luckily for her, it resulted in just the back of her car getting banged in and no-one was hurt, and the Landcruiser didn't even have a scratch, or so I thought... Later on down the road, I noticed the car handling oddly, drifting to the right. This was accompanied by a scraping noise. I pulled over shortly after when flagged down by another driver and discovered I now had no breaks. After getting the car off the road and coming to a stop I got out and discovered, to my horror, that my front-driver's side wheel was now billowing out lots of white smoke... The break disk had managed to get so hot from friction coming from the break pads that the wheel bearings had fused themselves to the hub. The mechanic now caring for the car thinks the bearings were not packed properly, but I'm thinking that it would have to be a huge coincidence that I happen to slam on the breaks with reasonable force to avoid an accident and they fail later on the same day. Has anyone else experienced similar problems with their break caliper becoming stuck on after having to break hard in an emergancy?