Front brakes binding up.

The Son and Heir has given me a call because the front brakes (both sides) on his Disco are binding up and heating up the brakes to red hot.

What can cause this issue?? Bad servo???

calipers maybe hanging up. slider not working properly. have had that on both GM and Ford, especially after a hard winter with lots of salt and grit to mess things up

Agree, caliper not sliding and/or pistons rusted and not retracting properly. Either buy a piston refurb kit and strip them, or new calipers.

Personally I prefer to fix things so I'd strip them and refurb.

Might be worth checking the pads too, if they're both, in each caliper, worn enough they can cause similar problems 'cos they might allow the caliper pistons too much travel, from which they can't recover.

He said that at times when driving, after things having been working properly for awhile, the brakes will cause the car to nearly stop, and the pedal is rock hard.

I'd say stop driving it then and get the brakes properly checked immediately by someone who knows Landrovers.

Only time that's happened to me was when a caliper bolt had snapped, so the whole caliper moved and locked up regularly, not on a Landy, mind!

It could, of course, be collapsed wheel bearing, welding itself to a stub axle, which causes similar symptoms, and can sometimes free off for a while, but that wouldn't give a solid pedal. Or it could even be something wrong with the axle fittings, maybe a radius arm bolt broke allowing the axle to twist, we've seen that when laning in Wales once! But it really does sound like it's something in the brake system ...

Is there a proportioning valve some where in the brake lines? that could be acting up

Paul D said:

Agree, caliper not sliding and/or pistons rusted and not retracting properly. Either buy a piston refurb kit and strip them, or new calipers.

Personally I prefer to fix things so I'd strip them and refurb.

Might be worth checking the pads too, if they're both, in each caliper, worn enough they can cause similar problems 'cos they might allow the caliper pistons too much travel, from which they can't recover.

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It's parked up and not going anywhere!

He recently had work done on the master cylinder by a local garage.......

West Slope Rover said:

It's parked up and not going anywhere!

He recently had work done on the master cylinder by a local garage.......

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That is where I would start with, a visit back to the garage

West Slope Rover said:

It's parked up and not going anywhere!

He recently had work done on the master cylinder by a local garage.......

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I'd take it back to the local garage then, I'd hazard a guess that there's something amiss there then, and it's little to do with the pads etc. I've only ever replaced a complete mc so am not certain if they're serviceable.

Actually, I'd more likely take it to an independant (or even proper) Landrover service centre and ask them for a report and estimate of costs.

Have fun and good luck ...

I just talked to him and he said that the work was done as a favor by his father-in law's mechanic. I don't think that he was a Landy specialist.

I've been looking through RAVE and it seems that if you were unaware of the intricacies of the ABS system while working on the system, you could be in trouble.

West Slope Rover said:

I just talked to him and he said that the work was done as a favor by his father-in law's mechanic. I don't think that he was a Landy specialist.

I've been looking through RAVE and it seems that if you were unaware of the intricacies of the ABS system while working on the system, you could be in trouble.

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Yeah, sorry I can't help further .. My landrovers haven't had ABS ...