Sometimes when I back out to the right (as in back end swings around to the right). My rear drivers side wheel squeaks. It rarely happens when its dry, but it will happen alot more and be much louder after rain or in high humidity. Sometimes it will happen when I hit the brakes at a slow speed. Im pretty sure its the brakes, but i have plenty of meat left on my pads? what could it be? BTW I have an 02 blazer with disk brakes all around.

 

the rotor will haze with rust almost imediately
Rust and dust can cause squeeking and squeeling
Some brands of brake pads are natorious for that type of noise

Chrysler had issues a couple years back
It would drive you nuts until the brakes warmed up and dried out

 

A few things you can check and try in no certain order. Make sure your brake hardware is installed properly and not hitting the rotor. Check the rotor for any extremely high spots that are hitting the hdwr or anything (excessive rotor wear will create a valley that the pad rides in and the high part of the rotor CAN hit the wear indicator, hdwr, or even the metal backing plate of the pads). Make sure all the hardware is lubricated and moving freely (slider bolts moving and shims plenty of lubrication I prefer a high temp brake grease over stop squeal). Also should have some lubrication on the backs of the pads as well. Make sure you don't have excess play in your bearings. You can also try and angle cut your pads (take a die grinder with a sanding disk and put a 30 degree angle on both ends of your pads). Make sure your rotor is releasing properly. If the hdwr or piston is sticking it will cause your pads to overheat and all kinds of things can happen then. You said pads so I've assumed disk rear brakes. But if you happen to have drum breaks make sure the 3 points of each shoe has lubrication (anti seize) between the backing plate and the shoe.

 

Check your e-brake, mine squealed to sometimes until I replaced them with nothing (through them in the trash) and now no more squeal.

 

my e-brake actually is broken. I push the e-brake pedal and it gives absolutely no resistance, even when i am coasting at just two or three MPH. I didnt get around to diagnosing the problem, but i know the cable engages with the pedal like its supposed to, so its something with the brake end of it. could this have anything to do with this problem?

 

Definitely diagnose your parking brake problems first. It could be part of your problem. When you say your pads have plenty left I'm assuming your looking at both inner and outer pads. If you have a sticking caliper piston it will cause the inner to wear out faster than the outer. And vise-versa for the hadwr sticking.

 

Remove your e-brake. Then there's nothing in your way. If you see a clean spot inside your rotor, then your e-brake has worked it's way on, just like mine did. Do you use it? I didn't, so I through it in the trash, It WILL cause you problems later. (another bad design)

 

I just remembered when I bought my blazer back in october, I drove it right to a gas station after buying it. I got out and my dad said it smelled like i drove with my parking brake on (i was sure i didn't). It happended to be raining on this day and the whole day or two before. I didn't test the e-brake before i bought it, so i dont know when it broke. - just something to note.

I took the problem wheel off and realized the problem was inside the rotor somewhere. can someone explain to me what the emergency brake does between the cable on the back of the rotor and the caliper?

 

here is a link that will give you detailed instructions on how to change out the parking brake. Basically you push the pedal down and it pulls a cable that pulls on 2 cables (one to each wheel) that pulls on an arm that activates the brakes. If 1 cable is broken then your parking brake won't work. If a cable is stuck in the on position it will wear out that wheel or both if lead cable. Until the shoe wears down so far that it doesn't work any more.

 

I thnk my rear caliper may be bad. Does the emergency brake use the caliper to brake the vehicle, or is it independent from the regular brake system? Also, my dust cover is pretty much deteriorating from rust and I'll need to replace these. can these affect my e-brake?