Brake smell???

[Debbie York]

Hi, I pulled two horses with my F150 yesterday. There were a lot of hills. I didn't have problems going up-hill, but breaking on the downhills might have caused the smell. It came from the driver side, rear near my tire. Is it possible that the brakes are being overused? The smell did not come from the trailer. I hear that the F150 brakes are naturally spongy. Thanks for your input.

[lonnie brown]

Do you have drum brake's or disc brakes? If youhave drum's, than I can see heat having a harder time to disapate than disc.

If you don't have heat, than you will not have any smells, are your brake shoes setup properly, ie Adjusters?

How abought your axle seals, wheel cylinder, any chance of oil leaking on the brake shoes?

best of luck.

[max mitchell]

Welcome ! Your front brakes work substantially harder than the rears. They may have periodically overheated. If you don't visually observe the friction material and rotor/drum surface, you're left with speculation. How old are the brakes?

[Debbie York]

I bought the truck used, and I know that the brake pads were new when I bought the vehicle. It definitely has drum brakes, but I don't know if it has new drums or not. I'm thinking that I overheated them going down hill. Probably should have put into a lower gear. The trailer brakes work really well.

[way fast witey]

if you pull a trailer in hills for a good distance you're probably gonna smell em burnin a little.as long as you use common sense and don't ride em the entire time then you should be ok