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Old 02-27-2010, 12:23 PM   #57
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Originally Posted by max49 View Post
I have read that the Calipers are getting hard to find and I believe that some one posted that they may be back ordered.
If Ford is using the same caliper, can this caliper be used on the WH?
Yes, The 66mm calipers can be. Ford also uses a 73mm on the front axle which WCC does not use.

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Also it may be interesting to compare prices and availability between the 2 companies. If they are still building new MHs on WH and Ford with the same caliper, they must be available.
Yes, Still available.

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This seems strange ,to me, to keep using these calipers on new MHs if Bosch, WH and Ford really are planning to recall and replace them. Doesn't this seem like a waste of money and time for them and also the new owners of these vehicles?
Yes, They'll work out the details later.

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Has anyone looked at the WH caliper and the Ford caliper side by side to see if there are any noticeable or subtle differences?
Yes and No

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Is the entire braking system , from the master cylinder to the rotors and every thing in between identical?
No, not identical Ford uses DOT4 and a different arrangement in mounting the Hydro-Max.

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If so this seems odd also and if Ford doesn't develop the brake problem this is something to definitely look into.
Max, Give it time!

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I don't think there are many interchangeable parts between Ford and Chevy. They don't like to be on the same dealer lot with each other.
Oh you mean like 2 cats in a hissing contest?
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Old 02-27-2010, 12:54 PM   #58
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The only imperative in what we read, is to purposefully ratchet up negative bias that will denigrate Workhorse and any person that maybe seen as having an affiliation with the company.
DriVer, although I don't always agree with your postings, I appreciate the time and effort you and other WH ambassadors put into these forums. Your postings are informative and beneficial to WH owners like myself. Without your input, information from and about WH and Bosch would be much more difficult for myself and others to obtain. (not that I always like what I here.).

I have noticed in the last several months that some posters are writing very biased comments and tend to back up statements with selective postings or editing of facts from other posts. Sometimes when a post seems to be directed toward any person or group of people , the I My Opinion, IMO tends to be added to circumvent direct accusations or factual statements.

I follow this and other forums to maintain my current knowledge of the RV lifestyle and specifically any items that concern or benefit my MH. I tend to take exception to postings that edit, embellish, or unreasonably bias facts as they were presented. We all have our reasons for reading the topics or posting on the forums. I ,for one, just want to expand my knowledge and offer my experience to others, but on a factual and level platform, with a dash of my opinion. It seems that I just posted some of the opinion part.

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Old 02-27-2010, 02:32 PM   #59
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edgray: In answer to your question, Why I did not replace the entire caliper assembly rather than ordering the individual parts? The answer is that I am an old engineer that does not believe in a "throw away" society. I learn from what I do, and what I have learned from this situation is:

1: Someone contaminated the brake fluid between the time the chassis left the workhorse factory and delivery in Katy TX.

2: After 2 other Workhorse service centers could not find anything wrong with the brakes, Monument Chevrolet in Pasadena found the contaminated fluid and I thought, fixed the Problem.

3: 3 years passed and they started freezing up again. In June last year I pulled the calipers out and found 4 of the 8 dust boots melted, and 6 of the 8 had never been pressed in to the caliper bore.

4: Upon examination of the pistons, I found all the pistons had expanded, but only the part of the piston that was outside the caliper bore. The part of the piston in contact with the 3 yr. old fluid still had plenty of bore clearance.

5: I ordered parts thru Monument Chev. and expected parts that month--They did not come.

6: I polished the caliper end of the old pistons until they fit the caliper bore. Put it all back together even with old dust boots and headed to the Smokies for 4 weeks.

7: I put the motorhome on stands and waited for the parts, which came in Feb.

8: If I would have put all new calipers on, the new calipers may have come with the same size pistons.

9: I put everything together and at the moment It all works.

Observation from an old engineer --Moisture in the brake fluid had nothing to do with size of the piston in contact with the brake fluid. Only moisture from outside affected piston swelling. Have a good day.
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Old 02-27-2010, 03:44 PM   #60
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Norman,

Just as a curious outside observer of your post, how did you conclude swelling of the portion of the caliper piston that is outside the bore of the caliper was caused due to water absorbtion? Not trying to be a smart ass, but just curious as to how you came to this conclusion. Could it not be caused by mushrooming of the phenolic material the piston is constructed of? The exposed portion of the piston is not surrounded by the cast iron bore of the caliper, and when exposed to the hydraulic pressure upon application of the brakes, couldn't the exposed portion of the piston change shape after repeated brake applications.

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Old 02-27-2010, 05:35 PM   #61
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Originally Posted by dieselclacker View Post
Just as a curious outside observer of your post, how did you conclude swelling of the portion of the caliper piston that is outside the bore of the caliper was caused due to water absorption? Not trying to be a smart ass, but just curious as to how you came to this conclusion. Could it not be caused by mushrooming of the phenolic material the piston is constructed of? The exposed portion of the piston is not surrounded by the cast iron bore of the caliper, and when exposed to the hydraulic pressure upon application of the brakes, couldn't the exposed portion of the piston change shape after repeated brake applications.
Dieselclacker, I think that's a fair question.

When I got my new pucks last year and the pistons were shoved back into their bores, I didn't make it 10 miles down the road before the calipers got stuck hard. I would therefore agree 100% that the phenolic must have mushroomed "OR" had swollen somehow.

There are papers on the NHTSA website (PDFs) that show that the diameter of the pistons were tested with an electronic instrument that can measure down to ten thousandths and they were measuring an oversize on a sampling of pistons above the design specs. So it made for interesting reading. In NHTSA's opinion contaminated brake fluid (water) did make an impact on the abnormality of the phenolic pistons.

If you want to download this file: INCLA-EA07016-36780.pdf this is called: CLOSING RESUME APPROVED *08/19/09

Right click on it and select, "save target as" and save it to your hard drive. After the DL then open it. Don't click on it or try to load it up in a window, it's too big unless your attached to a extremely fast connection. There are 2 other files preceding this one which also make for an interesting read. The other files are much smaller.
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Old 02-27-2010, 05:48 PM   #62
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DriVer, I understand water absorbtion from within the caliper bore, its the absorbtion from the portion outside the bore that Norman referred to as the cause of the swelling. Go to hard chromed cast iron or steel pistons, and no problems!!

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Old 02-27-2010, 06:02 PM   #63
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dieselclacker: The phenolic caliper pistons are made with two different diameters. The dia. for the piston bore, and the dia. for the dust boot and brake pad contact. The following piston diameters are from the one wheel that did not lock up. The diameter of the piston end that was in contact with the brake fluid was 2.594". The diameter of he piston end that was oitside the piston seal, but inside the dust boot was 2.598" (no fluid contact). And the diameter of the piston that the dust boot sealed on, and made contact with the brake pad was2.270". This piston dia. is .550" long. The piston also has a metal sleeve inside the piston that rolls over to the pad surface and almost covers the full surface. These dimensions are from the 2 pistons that were not burnt. On the other 6 pistons, the only pad contact surface left, and not burnt was under the metal sleeve. If there were any mushrooming of the pad contact end you would have to see damage to the metal sleeve on the 2 unburnt pistons. On the burnt pistons all bets are off. If you make the comversions to metric, you will find this is a 66mm piston also. I don't know how it compares with the W series pistons. Hope this answers your questions. Have a good day.
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Old 02-27-2010, 06:28 PM   #64
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Go to hard chromed cast iron or steel pistons, and no problems!!

Dieselclacker
Perhaps not from swelling, but heat transfer to the brake fliuid would be another matter.

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Old 02-27-2010, 06:33 PM   #65
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Quote:
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Go to hard chromed cast iron or steel pistons, and no problems!!
Dieselclacker, This is also Oemy's position in regard to the piston material as well. The following supports his position in regard to the stability of the piston material.

If you download the document I suggested, look at Figure 7 about steel pistons.

What I know about the phenolic is that it's required in order to meet the thermal demands of the caliper assembly. Steel is too conductive in this application.

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Old 02-27-2010, 08:26 PM   #66
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"If you want to download this file: INCLA-EA07016-36780.pdf this is called: CLOSING RESUME APPROVED *08/19/09"
According to this document, these brakes were designed for medium-duty trucks - not motorhomes. Also only 2 pistons were chosen to keep the cost down. Why is the investigation "closed" when nothing has been done (yet) about fixing the problem for the user? It may be "fixed" on paper but how about the real world.
I had another - left front - brake "drag" while I was driving south through Seattle in rush hour traffic in torrential rain. Now I have a leaking inner seal on that wheel. I will try and keep adding oil rather than "fight" with a Workhorse approved service center until the new calipers come out.
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Old 02-27-2010, 08:45 PM   #67
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According to this document, these brakes were designed for medium-duty trucks - not motorhomes..
I'm going to let you in on an inside secret .... everybody in the industry just about calls these things trucks because without them there would not be a motorhome chassis. The brakes are designed for Class 6 applications; trucks. That's us!

Quote:
Why is the investigation "closed" when nothing has been done (yet) about fixing the problem for the user? It may be "fixed" on paper but how about the real world.
You will have to call NHTSA to find out why. I expect that when they released the recall, the investigation had been concluded.

In the real world .... we're waiting for parts. If you have a seizure problem that is described and falls within the guidelines of the Interim Repair document they will fix that for you. See a dealer near you to get that going.
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Old 02-27-2010, 08:58 PM   #68
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Thanks for the feedback. Is the W24 a "truck". It has what I would consider to be "improved" brakes that seem adequate for Motorhome use.
I just don't trust the "guidelines" as there always seems to be a excuse for not paying or should I say for the customer to pay.
I love my coach and mostly the chassis but am just getting pissed at Workhorse re their dragging this out so long.
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Old 02-27-2010, 09:11 PM   #69
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Perhaps not from swelling, but heat transfer to the brake fliuid would be another matter.

Rusty
Not necessarily so Rusty, I purchased and still own and drive a 1976 Mercedes Benz 240D diesel with disk brakes on all four wheels. It is equipped with ATE brand calipers that have cast iron hard chromed pistons inside.
The calipers have never leaked, and the fluid has never boiled. I was, before retirement, a Registered certified Mercedes mechanic for 24 years. Mercedes h as used four wheel disk brakes on all thier cars since 1968. I do not know what type of calipers are in use now, but up until my retirement iron pistons were in use. We never had any problems with heat transfer to the point of boiling the fluid under normal conditions. Rust was never a problem. My old Benz is still running the same calipers it came with after 34 years. I think I may have stated before, that I believe cost may play a bigger role in choosing phenolic pistons over metal rather than superior resistance to heat transfer of the phenolic. Kind of like we used to say about plastic parts as they became more and more in use on cars back when I worked for a living, "they are light weight, rust proof, and never need painting" They were also cheap to produce, course we were not told that.

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Old 02-27-2010, 09:13 PM   #70
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jdsr: You say you will "give the facts" and I certainly hope you will begin to do JUST that. However, this is not the first time one of your posts here on iRV2 has alluded to some other unspecified post on some other unnamed forum. Frankly, it would be more helpful to our members here if you would provide a link to the information which you claim was posted elsewhere, because that would improve the credibility to your claim. That way they can read the facts for themselves.......

I believe your claim, which I bolded in the quote above, is misleading at best. I also believe that you are referring to a post made on RV.Net on 2-24-2010 by "nascarcruzin" which I paste here:

"Luckily no one was hurt in the fire, but there was not enough left of the motorhome to determine the point of origin. I was having trouble with my brakes (left rear) and was trying to limp home, stopping occasionally to let the brakes cool off as Workhorse recommends but we did not make it. Ronnie"

jdsr: Because I don't want to make any wrong assumptions here, if this is NOT the post to which you refer, then please provide a link or at least paste it here as I've done.

I cannot find where the OP wrote what you said he did. However, I did find a follow up post made by the OP later the same day which I paste here:

""jdsr, We had a 2003 Monaco LaPalma and it was on a W22 chassis. We really had some good times in it. All of our trips you see in our signature were made in the LaPalma. When it burned we had 83,000 trouble free miles (except for the brake issues)......""

To be clear, I'm NOT trying to dismiss the fact that apparently someone's coach burned. I am, however, trying to show a more complete picture than what was implied by your words, quoted above. Your assertion that Workhorse "told him" is NOT what he posted.

Next time you visit that thread over there on RV.Net, I hope you will see that I've posted a reply to another owner offering to help with his confusion regarding the brake recall. Helping owners is one of the things we Ambassadors do, and the results are better when we just stick to the facts. I wish you would do the same.
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Are you kidding me. 1) had brake tbl 2) wh told him to let cool and cont on 3) mh burnt to ground. Maybe you missed this post. Now go back to that site on page6 of the thread ,post # 4 of that thread, and this is what he posted....."Before heading out last spring, I completely flushed my system and refilled it with synthetic fluid and still had problems. In fact this time It caused a fire which caused my motorhome to burn to the ground, which in turn has solved my Workhorse brake issues". Ronnie ...........To sum up he flushed system, still had problems, In fact it CAUSED A FIRE WHICH CAUSED MY MH TO BURN TO GROUND, and his last line is a keeper... which solved my workhorse problem....so what is not a fact. BTW this was copied straight from his post. If you want to fact check who was trying to inform the wh owners who were having brake problems to report it to nhtsa and how to report it, and who was saying it was our fault, go back to early summer of 2007 and the proofs in the print. Just trying to help
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