Hmm, learn something new ... never heard about Phenolic pistons. The calipers were new when installed so it couldn't have been caused by pushing them back in on a brake service. My guess is they bound (even though Phenolic is supposed to lessen that happening) and over heated. Was just read on some other truck forums the suggestion that phenolic pistons don't age well with the high heat and freezing cycles in more northern locals. No idea if that's true or not ... but one of the guys with and F250 posted pics similar to my 2nd one above. .
Reading up a bit more, I now understand that some rebuilders will reuse phenolic pistons in the remanufacturing of calipers. How wonderfully environmentally conscious of them to recycle plastics! .
We've done rear brakes on F2-350's in the past with what felt like ok calipers, meaning the pistons traveled in ok with no apparent binding etc, only to return in a week with brake drag issues caused by the caliper. It seems to be a propensity of ford calipers (rears especially) to do this and I don't know why, but I always replace them now if they are 60k miles or over. Anything with 100K and has original calipers gets new ones. It's just funny over the whole spectrum of vehicles fords do this so often I can predict it. We see it with other brands but not nearly the same volume. Its just not worth my time or the customer's frustration to bother with. In reality we both lose money. This is I the rust belt though, definitely will vary in other climates.
Shit, I didn’t need rear brakes on my ‘03 Ram until 193k miles. Ran the same calipers until she blowed up at 337k. Just put rears on the ‘05 Ram dually, rotors, pads and parking brake shoes, plus wheel seals. Pistons retracted fine and dandy and weren’t cracked to shit(they appear to be phenolic or ceramic, not steel).
Picked up a Makita 1/2 impact drill (I have the batteries and chit ) and made taking the lug nuts off a breeze. The jack asses at Firestone torqued them so hard I broke a socket with my breaker bar. No chance id get them off if I was on the side of the road. Usually don't go to Firestone but had to in a pinch.. but it gave the excuse to buy a new tool instead of asking my buddy who owns a shop to just loosen them for me
He had a breaker bar on it, not the impact right? If so, at normal torque specs it shouldn't be a problem. That said, I too have impact sockets that I use for hard to break bolts with my breaker bar. Edit: or just use my impact .
I don't know...which cheap Chinese company do you buy tools from that managed to make a 16pt socket? Question ohh person of extremely high intellect. How many sides does a hex nut have? Now guess how many points that it also has. Now explain the geometry behind a 16 pt. socket.
8 point would be for square drive. Can't say I have ever run across a 16 point socket. He should at the least be using a 6 point and not a 12 point. Impact would be better still.
Cuz I just grabbed whatever was closest to the breaker bar in the bottom drawer bypassing my sonic tools tool box and good stuff not thinking id have to use my man strength to get a lug nut off I have impact sockets for the new gun though. Yesterday was expensive
Better question is why wouldn't you use that socket with a breaker bar on what should be no more then 120lbs/ft or so nuts? There is always better, but that should have been much more then enough.
The problem was it doesn't look like it was on the nut fully, combined with it being 12pt and just a chromie socket at that, also combined with the side leverage induced by using a breaker bar or ratchet in general.
