Re: Greased the brakes....Dang nab it Reply #25 – June 03, 2014, 09:35:41 am Gayland - I called Meritor and talked to a brake Tech Rep. Chose Brakes in the phone menu and gave him the local tel. area code and he gave me a number of shops to contact that they sell parts to. I guess any shop can buy parts but I contacted a few in the area and questioned them about the brakes and made an appointment. Both Kenworth and Peterbuilt were listed. Funny that they did not give me that name and # of the local Cummins shop. Had to drive 100+/- miles each way but I feel better today.Live and learn. Quote Selected
Re: Greased the brakes....Dang nab it Reply #26 – June 03, 2014, 10:41:01 am Okay, I'm might be very dumb. A year ago I got under my coach and greased everything with a zerk, including the breaks. I haven't noticed any problems in the 6000 miles + I've driven. What should I look out for? Quote Selected
Re: Greased the brakes....Dang nab it Reply #27 – June 03, 2014, 11:18:46 am David - You may not have any concerns at all. Incorrect lube may cause brake drag that might cause excessive heat causing rotor cracking and excessive pad wear that would require replacement - quite expensive. The Grade 1 lube has specific upper and lower temp. specifications as well as viscosity characteristics. I understand many synthetic Grade 2 lubes will meet the Meritor requirements. Not having a high confidence level in the info that Cummins gave to me I opted to have the Meritor specified grade 1 lube purged and replaced with the the Meritor specified stuff. I might have avoided our brake experience if I had "exercised" the brakes as described on this forum - but I am old, fat and I am not the sharpest tack in the box as well as not remembering the post that I read a year or so ago. Note: One of our zerk fittings when purged produced little lube indicating that there was little lube in the caliper. So I guess that that in some sort of warped way this experience was a good thing. I certainly learned about our brake system.Further Note: I did have the Tech put wire ties around each zerk fitting on the caliper. I am not sure if that will deter the next Tech but hopefully it might cause him to ask the question. "Should I pump grease into these fittings?"I guess the greater issue is HOW to determin if a service provider is capable of Meritor brake inspection and maintenance. By merely asking questions, even what is perceived as the "right" questions, does not necessarily mean that the service provider knows how to do what to do. I will again struggle with this issue when we next have the chassis lubed. Quote Selected
Re: Greased the brakes....Dang nab it Reply #28 – June 03, 2014, 11:57:41 am Scott - I go through Missoula every summer on my way to Eastern Washington so if I have no luck finding a shop here in Eastern North Dakota I'll maybe give them a try. I take it you were happy with them. Don't suppose you remember the name of the tech that worked on it? As noted in other posts, I've checked over the front brakes and they are fine, but my initial "crawling under to see what I can see" on the back I get the impression that I'm going to need new pads. Quote Selected
Re: Greased the brakes....Dang nab it Reply #29 – June 03, 2014, 01:20:09 pm Gayland - Ray was the tech that worked on our coach - older guy with a gray beard. I believe Jim was the Service Mgr., not sure though. Peterbuilt in Missoula, 406-721-6100. Shop rate per hour - $103.00. Yes I was happy with them. Smaller shop but seem to be good. Unfortunately, I couldn't see much of the rear calipers from my vantage point - under the axle. Be aware that, as mentioned before on this forum, that the inner pads are thicker than the outer pads so they may appear to have worn more than they actually have. I purchased the replacement pads from: Heavy Duty Truck Parts Online, Medium Duty, Light Duty - FinditParts . 1 set has 2 inner and 2 outer pads per Kit. MERITOR KIT15625PM SHOE & LINING KIT $198.01 1 $198.01 I did verify the part # with FOT and checked availability & price. FOT has parts - price is double the price that I found. If the price was close I would have purchased from FOT as I would like to support Mother when feasible.I am not a Meritor Brake guru but would suggest that you contact Meritor and request they share with you local service provirders and then question the service providers as to their experience with the 4M Air Brakes. These brakes have manual Slack Adjusters and not Automatic. I do not think that many techs these days have even seen our brakes let alone worked on them. The first guys I talked to and brought the coach to in Butte, said they worked on Meritor brakes and could change out the pads but could not. The tech I talked to knew the name Meritor but I found out they thought we had drum brakes and not fully air brakes even though I explecidely told them "Air Brakes with Manual Slack Adjusters". As you can imagine the shops are somewhat apprehensive about installing parts that they did not buy. Not only are they concerned about having the correct parts to perform the repair but they also loose margin on the parts them selves. I tried to attach the Maintenance Manual for your review and files in this post but the file is too large. I downloaded the maintenance manual to my Droid phone and had it available for review with the service manager or tech if required.Good luck - If you would like a copy of the Maint. Manual or chat, PM me with your phone #/email address. Quote Selected
Re: Greased the brakes....Dang nab it Reply #30 – June 03, 2014, 05:12:24 pm Chassis grease in brakes. . . I think this is the thinking:Brakes get hot and grease may not hold up.Bigger problem is that greasing with wrong or correct grease requires a manual step that squeezes out excess new lubricant. And if not done, the brakes may not relax enough after taking foot off brake pedal causing the brake pads to rub on rotor.Not related to greasing & zerks, another problem with brakes is when slide pins are not maintained and brakes hang on one of the two pins and pads operate at an angle or don't move like they should. Quote Selected
Re: Greased the brakes....Dang nab it Reply #31 – June 03, 2014, 07:14:49 pm Barry - I think that you are mostly correct. I would only add: After talkiing with the Tech Guy at Meritor, most grade 2 greases today will meet their high temp requirement but not their low temp requirement. Also the viscisity of grade 2 is thicker so it may not flow as well. Quote Selected
Re: Greased the brakes....Dang nab it Reply #32 – June 03, 2014, 08:02:40 pm Quote from: David and Rita – June 03, 2014, 10:41:01 amOkay, I'm might be very dumb. A year ago I got under my coach and greased everything with a zerk, including the breaks. I haven't noticed any problems in the 6000 miles + I've driven. What should I look out for?I'm no expert on this but I would first check the slide pins on the brakes and see if any of them are pushed in further than the others. If so, you will have to remove the wheels to look at the brake rotors and calipers themselves.Another basic way of checking would be to use an infrared temperature gun and hit all the rotors after driving for awhile to see if any of them are hotter than the others. The dragging of the pads will obviously cause an increase in temperature on the rotor.Or you could go pick up a 20 ton bottle jack, jack stands, extra 10 gallon air tank and the heavy duty 1/2" impact gun at Harbor Freight and get into the fun world of Meritor disk brake maintenance first hand. Note that the extra 10 gallon tank is necessary for the coach's air system to be able to supply enough volume for the impact wrench and even then you'll have to wait for the coach air system to bring the tank up to pressure after a few lug nuts. You will not be able to zip off all of the lug nuts like a Nascar pit crew. That same coach air system will also allow you to raise and lower the 20 ton air jack though it will be like the lug nuts and there will be waiting involved. Ahhh, the joys of coach maintenance. If you are extremely wealthy, ignore all of that and just take it to a shop and have them maintain it. Quote Selected
Re: Greased the brakes....Dang nab it Reply #33 – June 03, 2014, 08:58:31 pm Easier to have a pancake compressor. I saw a couple of them plumbed into some coaches. Quote Selected
Re: Greased the brakes....Dang nab it Reply #34 – June 03, 2014, 09:06:54 pm Thinking your going to have a disappointment trying to use the HD 1/2" air impact unless you can get the pressure up a fair amount AND use a larger dia. air hose with larger quick couplers. You need both Volume and Pressure, these air tools use large amounts.I use a 3/4" HD air impact with the larger line, it works fine, but my 1/2" just cries with no results even with my 180 psi shop air & larger line. The lug nuts can be very tuff.We remove the wheels annually, do extensive PM & snooping.JMODave M Quote Selected
Re: Greased the brakes....Dang nab it Reply #35 – June 03, 2014, 09:17:34 pm Temp using an infrared gun would be a great indicator but one would only know the story by pulling the wheels and seeing what they say. Will add to my annual check. Will need to find a nice forum member where we can visit for a few days. My PM & snooping list gets longer seems like every day. Quote Selected
Re: Greased the brakes....Dang nab it Reply #36 – June 03, 2014, 09:27:24 pm Quote from: Carol & Scott – June 03, 2014, 09:17:34 pmWill add to my annual check. Will need to find a nice forum member where we can visit for a few days. I'm thinking John Haygarth could pay for his 3rd Foretravel if he rented out his pit to visiting Fofums... Quote Selected
Re: Greased the brakes....Dang nab it Reply #37 – June 03, 2014, 09:41:28 pm Quote from: Dave M – June 03, 2014, 09:06:54 pmThinking your going to have a disappointment trying to use the HD 1/2" air impact unless you can get the pressure up a fair amount AND use a larger dia. air hose with larger quick couplers. You need both Volume and Pressure, these air tools use large amounts.I use a 3/4" HD air impact with the larger line, it works fine, but my 1/2" just cries with no results even with my 180 psi shop air & larger line. The lug nuts can be very tuff.We remove the wheels annually, do extensive PM & snooping.JMODave MI've actually had good results with this Harbor Freight model which said it was rated for 7-800 lb. ft of torque on the box-1/2 in. Professional Air Impact Wrenchso long as the shop that put the wheels on actually followed the *correct torque specifications* which IIRC are 550 lb. ft. If they didn't, like for example whoever last put the tires on when I bought the coach, you can kiss any chance of it working goodbye. I just replaced the tires at Love's a few months ago and the tech used a torque wrench to set the values and I have had no problems removing the lug nuts with the HF 1/2" impact and an extra 10 gallon tank plumbed into the coaches air system through the line I use to fill the tires. It isn't the absolute fastest setup but I'm not going to carry around another compressor for the few times I need it. Not sure how long the HF wrench is going to last but I'm pretty impressed so far for about a hundred bucks and I didn't feel like ponying up for a $250 IR. My heavy duty Makita 18v impact wrench will not budge a lug nut due to maxing out at 350lb. ft. Too bad since it is very convenient. I'm using a 3/8" 50' Flexzilla hose with 1/4" connectors. A 3/4" gun would probably make short work of the lug nuts if you have enough air. Quote Selected
Re: Greased the brakes....Dang nab it Reply #38 – June 03, 2014, 10:13:29 pm Hi Michelle - It's so nice to hear your smiley voice in this thread. We are having so much fun with our 1st FT. Can't imagine what it would be like with 2 or 3. Quote Selected
Topic: Greased the brakes....Dang nab it