Brakes, only one wheel working!!

[rpokorny]

I have a 2000 cavalier. Everything was fine until today. I started the car and as I backed out of the driveway and pressed the brake pedal, the driver's side rear wheel would lock up with the lightest amount of pressure. I tried stopping a few times going forward and backwards and it feels as if only this one wheel is braking. the other three don't seem to work at all. the fluid is full and there are no leaks. the front pads look good, but I haven't pulled the drums off yet. Any ideas on what would cause this? I can't even drive it to the shop this way.

OK, I'm one of those that didn't read the section Read This Before Posting Anything. Sorry.

[rpokorny]

OK, fixed the problem. Some how the brakes became contaminated. there doesn't appear to be a leak, but after pulling the brake drums, it appeared as if the brake dust was sticky as are the brake shoes and drum. I cleaned out the brake dust, sanded down the brake shoes and sanded down the brake drums. Now all is back to normal. After cleaning I checked for leaks and there didn't appear to be any so I don't know how they got contaminated.

[Jmrec100]

If you figure out where it came from, please post it. I had a different problem but similar weird situation. I replaced the rear with new brake shoes. I've changed drums shoes before on other cars without a probelm. Except for my Cavaliar. Just the drivers side would grab, make a clunking sound and just sound and feel awful. After several attempts to adjust etc, I couldn't get it to stop. I mentioned the problem to a friend and he said, out of round drum. Really weird because had no problem until I changed the brake shoes. Sure enough, new drum, no problem. I checked the run-out of the drum and it wasn't anything really out of the ordinary. Not really out of round. But new drum and no more problem.

[Jacfourteen]

I've heard many posts about the rear brakes on these cars. My 97 z24 the pass side rear makes a scraping sound when stopping, I pulled it off and cleaned everything, but no help. it still scapes when stopping and if I'm on a gravel road and hit the brakes then that one locks up. I'm almost considering the rear disk swap that classicrocjunkie outlined.

[rpokorny]

You are correct about the out of round brake drum, I have had both drums and rotors go out of round. It's a real pain. If it's the rotor, it can cause a shutter when you press the brakes, but if it's the drums, it can cause one wheel to lock up,especially on gravel. In my case, I thought only one wheel was the problem. when I cleaned it up and went for a test drive, the other back wheel acted the same way so I cleaned that one up too.

To avoid this problem, I usually take my back drum brakes apart twice a year and clean out the dust I take it outside and blow it all out or simply use a paint brush. I think that the accumulated brake dust gets wet when driving in rain and forms a kind of paste. If you keep the brakes clean, no paste. Unfortunately, I have neglected the cavalier and haven't cleaned out the brakes in years.

[Jacfourteen]

Originally Posted by rpokorny

You are correct about the out of round brake drum, I have had both drums and rotors go out of round.

Me too, the first thing I changed when I bought the car were the front rotors because they vibrated so bad.