Frozen Brakes

M

Mudeprived

New member
I just got home from almost browning my seat. I pulled out of work this morning (graveyard) and had no brakes. The pedal was SOLID and would not move. I had to downshift and pull over. About a minute or two later the brakes started working again. I believe my brakes froze (it was 14 degrees all night). I did not have an issue backing out of the parking spot so I think the rear brake froze on the shoe as I applied the brake to shift into D.

I did have a leak on the driver's side axle seal and it saturated the shoes on that side. I have fixed the leak recently but have not had any decent weather to replace the shoes. It has been COLD. Sometimes the shoes stick when stopping and I can tell it is the driver's side. I have fresh fluid in the lines since I had the brakes flushed and bled this past spring so I don't think it's the fluid.

My question is can that one rear driver's side brake freezing together cause all the brakes to not function? I would think the other three would still grab or am I wrong? Could it be something else?
 
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no answer for you, but mine does the same. i let it warm up a few min, pump the brakes a few times, and then they seem to work fine.
 
No it's not a normal having all the braking action fail due to just one failing.

It's possible that you have some water in the brake fluid, brake fluid is hygroscopic, meaning it attracts/assorbs moisture.

I think you may have had an ice crystal blocking the brake system passageways, there could of been an ice crystal in the system and when you used the brakes backing up the ice moved and blocked off a critical passageway in the brake system, most likely in the master cylinder, or ice had the piston frozen and not able to mkove, once the heat from the engine heated up the engine compartment the ice melted and then you had brakes again.

The only other thing I can think of would be a bind somewhere in the brake pedal and the master cylinder and or piston in the master cylinder preventing you from being able to prees the pedal down.
 
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AuSeeker said:
No it's not a normal having all the braking action fail due to just one failing.

It's possible that you have some water in the brake fluid, brake fluid is hygroscopic, meaning it attracts/assorbs moisture.

I think you may have had an ice crystal blocking the brake system passageways, there could of been an ice crystal in the system and when you used the brakes backing up the ice moved and blocked off a critical passageway in the brake system, most likely in the master cylinder, or ice had the piston frozen and not able to mkove, once the heat from the engine heated up the engine compartment the ice melted and then you had brakes again.

The only other thing I can think of would be a bind somewhere in the brake pedal and the master cylinder and or piston in the master cylinder preventing you from being able to prees the pedal down.
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Well that was my first thought but the system has fresh fluid in it unless somehow water got into it within the past 6 months of the flush.

I am going to re-flush it again when I do the shoes just in case.


edit: come to think of it, I bled the rear brakes recently when doing the seal replacement. I remember buying a brand new container of synthetic brake fluid and the seal under the cap was broken. Perhaps this broken seal means the fluid was exposed to air/moisture and absorbed it over time until I purchased it and poured it in?
 
Sounds like your brake booster check valve is failing. Same exact thing happened to me last year. I replaced the valve and it hasn't happened again since. It's a somewhat common thing and the part is pretty cheap ($25ish bucks?). Also, replace the grommet that the valve sits in.

If it only happens when its really cold out, I can almost guarantee its the check valve.

Read this
 
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If its the front brakes, make sure you have the calipers all cleaned up and make sure you have used caliper lube. I live on a bumpy and dusty drive and my calipers were not fully coming off the rotor when i removed pressure from them. I bled the brakes but found no air pockets, cleaned the calipers and re greased the guide rods for the pads and that solved it for me. I have no advice for the rear drums. I completely rebuilt mine and they seem to do much less than the prescribed 30-40% braking. This is also a great excuse to do a tundra brake upgrade if you haven't yet. "Well the front brakes squeak and sort of stuck that one time, I should probably throw an over sized brand new set of discs, pads and rotors on there."
 
thegipper said:
Sounds like your brake booster check valve is failing. Same exact thing happened to me last year. I replaced the valve and it hasn't happened again since. It's a somewhat common thing and the part is pretty cheap ($25ish bucks?). Also, replace the grommet that the valve sits in.

If it only happens when its really cold out, I can almost guarantee its the check valve.

Read this
Click to expand...

Thank you.
 
thegipper said:
Sounds like your brake booster check valve is failing. Same exact thing happened to me last year. I replaced the valve and it hasn't happened again since. It's a somewhat common thing and the part is pretty cheap ($25ish bucks?). Also, replace the grommet that the valve sits in.

If it only happens when its really cold out, I can almost guarantee its the check valve.

Read this
Click to expand...

I agree, I have a 4th Gen and it doesn't have a vaccum booster, didn't think about the 3rd Gens having a booster, if the check valve/grommet doesn't solve the issue it could be the booster itself going bad.
 
thegipper said:
Sounds like your brake booster check valve is failing.
Click to expand...

This happens to me daily in my '97. Freaked me out first time it happened, I hit the forums, and since learning about this valve, I just wait a minute before I put the truck in gear, pumping the brakes to make sure the interference has cleared.

Haven't gotten around to replacing the check valve, but am planning to.
 
I'm in the same boat, pulled out of the driveway the last two days and no brake at all for a good minute or two. That was some scary shit at first!
 
had the same thing happen this week with the single digit temps this week. I let the truck warm up for 5 min, pulled out and the pedal was solid. shifted to N and pumped it again and it seemed to be fine. Hasn't happened since that one episode 4 days ago.
 
A very timely post. Had this happen the same day! Went skiing and after a full day of sitting outside the pedal was solid. This is why I love this forum. :thumb:
 
Just had this happen yesterday and the day before, almost rolled back into a transport truck had to pull the E-brake. It was -10f/-24c in the morning....
 
enapa said:
Trust me. It is literal night and day having done the Tundra brakes.
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Maybe in the future but for now I am good with my Akebono/Toy combo and have no reason to upgrade. I recently had to panic stop cuz some dude stopped in the middle of the road after missing his exit and all four locked up, stopping me pretty instantly from 40 mph. I was pretty shocked on how well the brakes work cuz I have read alot abt piss poor braking performance on 4runners.
 
I'm with everyone else telling you to replace the booster check valve. Happened to me two years ago with the Puppy Hauler. Took the check valve off the wrecked 96 and never had a problem afterwards.


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Yeah I am pretty sure that is the issue. Right now we have a wind chill advisory of somewhere around 0 so i will wait till it gets a little warmer before I go check it out. I will try to clean it out with wd-40 before replacing it.
 
Mudeprived said:
Yeah I am pretty sure that is the issue. Right now we have a wind chill advisory of somewhere around 0 so i will wait till it gets a little warmer before I go check it out. I will try to clean it out with wd-40 before replacing it.
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I tried all that and no luck.


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