rear brake on FIRE!

[jimGTS]

had a bit of a heart pounding moment this morning!
tried to get to work, the whole car was frozen in ice, was near impossible to even open the doors!
had noticed on the journey to the station that the car was started to smell a bit, ie like a buring smell! it also felt like i was breaking, when i clearly wasnt.
dropped sister off, got out the car, and the rear left brake had loads of smoke coming from it (not fire), luckily i had some water in the boot!
i think my rear brake must have frozen itself onto the disk, and was causing a tremendous amount of heat!
took the car out for a while after that and it seemed a ok!
could i have a seized caliper, or was it just down to the weather????????????

[Aidy]

This is quite common in cold weather. With the handbrake on the callipers just freeze up and taking the handbrake off doesn't free the callipers so you are basically driving it with the brakes on. Thankfully this will heat up the discs a fair amount so the callipers will thaw. However throwing cold water on a super hot disc is certainly no recommended as you might crack it.

If you know it is going to be cold overnight and you'll need your car in the morning leave the handbrake off and the car in gear.

[jimGTS]

This is quite common in cold weather. With the handbrake on the callipers just freeze up and taking the handbrake off doesn't free the callipers so you are basically driving it with the brakes on. Thankfully this will heat up the discs a fair amount so the callipers will thaw. However throwing cold water on a super hot disc is certainly no recommended as you might crack it.

If you know it is going to be cold overnight and you'll need your car in the morning leave the handbrake off and the car in gear.

id only been driving it for around 10mins, so cant have got the disc to hot!
but you are right, i perhaps i shouldnt have chucked water on it, just that i thought i was gona see flames or something!

[Scuba_Turbo]

Same happened to me this morning!! drove about a mile with the handbrake frozen on!!! smoking like a BBQ!

[jimGTS]

Same happened to me this morning!! drove about a mile with the handbrake frozen on!!! smoking like a BBQ!

did s*it me up a bit TBH!

[robbie lamb]

[quote="jimGTS"]had a bit of a heart pounding moment this morning!
tried to get to work, the whole car was frozen in ice, was near impossible to even open the doors!
had noticed on the journey to the station that the car was started to smell a bit, ie like a buring smell! it also felt like i was breaking, when i clearly wasnt.
dropped sister off, got out the car, and the rear left brake had loads of smoke coming from it (not fire), luckily i had some water in the boot!
i think my rear brake must have frozen itself onto the disk, and was causing a tremendous amount of heat!
took the car out for a while after that and it seemed a ok!
could i have a seized caliper, or was it just down to the weather????????????[/quote]

Hi there I had the same problem this morning the cable was frozen solid I ended up stopping afer a couple 100 m because it wasn't gonna free up, so I pulled over and let her tick over for a good half an hour unill she was fully warned up. With a little teasing with the handbrake it soon free'd up. then I checked after every few hundread yards just to make sure it wasn't sticking at all. Tonight the car is down the drive stooled up against a couple of bricks with the handbrake off so hopfully no worries for the morning

[lower]

its a common mr2 problem. the seals at the end of the handbrake cables start to leak and let water get inside. this then freezes and you get the handbrake frozen on scenario. you can either replace the handbrake cables to deal with this, or force oil inside the cable to displace the water.

leave the car in gear with the handbrake off at night as a short term solution to this.