about six months back, i replaced the pads and rotors on my 96 half ton express van. At the time, I was lazy and didn't check the backs. i've been putting it off. last friday, my wife reported a metal grinding noise. i assumed i had waited too long on the backs and stopped by the parts store to get new drums, shoes, and a spring kit. rather than trying to turn them, they looked original and had 150k on them. so i opted to just replace them. I did all the work last saturday. It looked as though the bracket on one of the shoes has rusted from behind as the break material was cracking and falling off. that drum also had some grooves as it was down to the rivits.
I put it all back together, no change in the grinding noise. so I took off the right front wheel to find that the inside pad was down to the bracket, but the outside pad looked new. I bought new pads and a new rotor and put them on also that afternoon. the kid at autozone seemed to think it was a stuck caliper, but i was skeptical. it wasn't leaking and seemed to move ok. And the bolts were nice an greasy with seals in good shape. still, it was only $17 so i opted to replace the caliper also just in case.
So what happened? was it a bad pad? was the kid right, a stuck caliper?
brian