Thread: Hot Rim..

To all those less frustrated than I..

I have a 1993 Grand Prix 3.1l. My problem starts a while back.. Our car had a very hot rim when we came back from a trip one day, it was smoking horribly, and throwing snow caused it to steam immediately. I took it apart, didn't find anything, but cleaned the caliper pins, re-lubed them, and made sure the caliper wasn't ceased - all was ok, but the plastic cover had melted where the lug nut covers go. Noted the heat damage and put back together.

Tried driving it and got 20 miles away when this happened again. This time, was at the mercy of the shop, who took it apart, found some heat damage and said we have no idea, there's nothing wrong that we see. I thought I could be wrong on the caliper, so I made them replace the caliper and the rubber brake line (it was cheap enough, and in the middle of a Michigan winter I wasn't doing it in a foot of snow.)

Ta-Da! It worked.. For a while. Lasted maybe.. 2k miles? Just got back from a 100-150 mile trip and my wife and I smelled something. Since we had this before I walked around the car and checked to see if any rim was hot, bam, the right rear was hot again. This time, I have no idea what to do. It's currently sitting in the driveway cooling off... Anyone have any other ideas? Could the wheel bearing be the culprit even though there's no grind? I've had bearings go before but with grinding, but those were in the front of the car...

The Car:
It does have Disc breaks in the back.
No ABS.

Tried:
New Caliper
New rubber brake line

Again any help would be appreciated. I will also remark that I know this forum doesn't cover my older car, but have been offered help by those who had newer models and knew some things about the older in a previous forum.

My guess would be a wheel bearing.

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Originally Posted by nik12937

Considering you've ruled out the caliper and hose, my only thought it that the parking brake may be hanging up at that wheel. It must be braking related, nothing else around the wheel can generate that much heat. Make sure the parking brake line moves freely and isn't adjusted too tight, and also check the adjustment of the brake shoes themselves. They're inside the hat of the rotor. It couldn't hurt to lubricate them while you're in there either.

Thanks to both who responded. This had happened once and the lever was seized so never touched. Forgot to mention I left it unhooked when I very first looked at it in the winter, it still is unhooked, zip-tied out of place.

Any other signs of a wheel bearing failure? I've only done front ones on these pontiacs (later models though) so not sure of the symptoms of these rear ones? I'm just a DIYer with experience from doing it and getting arm deep. Like I said though there's no grinding that we notice or noise from that wheel.

Originally Posted by nik12937

Typical signs for a bad wheel bearing would be a droning noise that increases with speed and occasionally some play in the hub, though I've noticed most bearings with play don't make much noise (and bearings with no play are very loud). Though I've never seen a bad bearing get that hot, it couldn't hurt to raise the vehicle and check for play in the wheel

Even if your parking brake cable is unhooked, the resting position of the shoes for that wheel could be adjusted too far out, causing them to drag. I've almost burned my hand several times at work when removing customer's rear lugs and wheels, and while it was usually stuck caliper pins/seized caliper piston there were two times where the parking brake was hanging up.

Nik, thanks for the help with all this. I'm currently jacking it up in the air right now so will see what happens. The wheel bearing is the only thing left that makes sense, no idea what else it could be...