[mattre69]

Just wondering if anyone else thinks their brakes are biased to the front too much? I first thought that by adjusting my rears which were way loose and looked new would take care of the front wanting to slide easily, but it didn't. The front pads were had plenty left also. I adjusted the rears up so that the Ebrake works good and the pedal came back up and lubed the adjusters but any loose gravel or snow/ice and the front just wants to lock up.

 

[Jerry Bransford]

Maybe your brakes have some kind of a problem but the front brakes are designed to provide 75-80% of the braking force, it would be dangerous for the braking to be 50:50 front/rear. The rear brakes are too easily locked up due to weight transfer away from the rear tires and brakes during hard braking so they are set up so the majority of the braking force is applied up front. It's common to lose control/slide when the rear brakes lock up.

 

[mattre69]

But to me it's even worse to loose control in the front when they lock up. When the front locks you have no steering, but if the back locks you still have some steering. Of course I've had older cars that didn't have antilock and don't remember any of them being biased this much toward the front, but I did have a 79 Trans Am that was biased too much to the rear and wanted to slide the rear sometimes. I don't know if these have a proportioning valve or not, but if it does maybe it's bad?

 

[Jerry Bransford]

But to me it's even worse to loose control in the front when they lock up.

That's a common but absolutely incorrect misconception. Do a little reading on the subject and you'll quickly learn why all vehicles have most of the braking force up front. And think how a lot of stunt or security drivers get their rear-ends to slide out for fast u-turns... they often engage the rear parking brake to get the rear tires to lock up which makes it easy to get the vehicle to "swap ends".

And the whole point of ABS braking is to prevent brake lockup but the very worst/most dangerous brakes to have locked up are the rear brakes. That is why the brake proportioning valve is designed to bias the braking force towards the front to around 75/25, 70/30, or 80/20.

The reason being is that when you apply the brakes hard, that causes a massive weigh transfer towards the front which unweights the rear tires and puts most of the weight on the front tires and brakes. That makes it very easy to lock up the rear brakes in a hard stop, since there's no longer as much weight on the rear tires, which is why the brake proportioning valve is set to only give a small percentage of the available braking force to the rear brakes.

 

[Digger84]

Sort off it is more dangerous to have only front locked and no brake action in back and much safer to have only back locked up and no brake action in front like locking e brake cable with no foot on brake

However if one end is locked and braking less effectively while other end is braking more effectively you are now safer to have locked ineffective braking in front as rolling friction is higher than sliding friction

My TR3 had ebrake in that it did not set unless you also pushed center button and just pulling handle to apply rear brake only created no instability as long as no front braking was applied

 

[wooley12]

Warped rotor? Or slow down on gravel? Or practice adding pressure to the brake pedal gradually to just before the point just before lockup?

 

[mybadford]

Rubber hose from the frame to the axle might be old and swelling when you hit the brakes. I had the same issue on a Suburban and did a little reading and replaced the hose and the rear brakes worked way better.

 

[mattre69]

I understand that the braking should be biased towards the front because it does most of the braking, however mine seems to be too much bias towards the front which allows it to lock up way too easily especially in loose or slippery conditions. I had a 98 before this one and it didn't do that, so it's something particular to this Jeep it seems. It's kind of embarrassing to be sliding so easily and sometimes dangerous. If I engage the front drive to lock everything together it stops much better and doesn't lock near as easily. Mybadford, that's an idea that maybe the rear rubber line is collapsing and causing the rear not to operate very well? It would be from age because it only has 56k on it. I don't suppose there's anyway to check for collapsed hose without taking it off?