Fabs,
Actually, the bolts didn't break. What happened is the lower bolt of the two that hold the caliper on just fell out somewhere on the road between my break-down point and where I had filled up with gas some 2.5 hours prior. Because the lower bolt was missing, as I applied my brake when approaching the exit, it allowed the caliper to pivot back and come in contact with the wheel which if I had been able to tell what was going on I could have got off the brake and gone to my e-brake and trailer brake since I was towing my ATV back to the club. Not knowing what was causing the sound I naturally continued to brake as I approached the stop sign at the top of the offramp. The more I wanted to stop, the worse it got until it simply ground right through the alloy wheel essentially cutting it in half before it finally broke through and the air escaped rapidly causing me to think I had a blow out.
I personally did the brakes on the truck about 10,000 miles ago but I know I torqued the bolts. I forgot and my wife reminded me that I just had some warranty work on the front driveline because an inner 4WD axle actuator failed and it wouldn't lock the front axle in when in 4WD. They had to disassemble the whole right front axle housing to fix it and I'm pretty confident that included removing the caliper and wheel assy. The sad part is that it is a friend who works at the dealer that did the work but I'm going in Monday to investigate the repair procedure to see if they had the caliper off. If they did, then the dealer is buying me a new alloy wheel. This work was done a few weeks ago right before I drove the rig on a 2200 mile round trip to Colorado. Damn, how fun would this have been in the middle of the Utah high desert?
__________________
______________________________
|