Frozen Brakes?

[dchsw]

Jumped in the 110 this morning for a quick trip to Rona and as I pulled out of the car port there was a big "thunk" from the back end like something coming unstuck. Hopped out and had a quick look-see underneath, but nothing obvious so put it down to some snow/ice build up somewhere that had broken loose as I set off.

Once on the paved road, switched to high range and set off slowly down our un-ploughed side road until I reached the main, ploughed, road and off I went at normal pace. Reached the road that joins us to the highway and started to slow down for the turn and whoops! No brakes.

Well, there was some stopping action, but not much. The pedal depressed the normal distance but was juddering back at me, kind of like what happens when an ABS system kicks in. This truck does not have ABS, by the way.

Fortunately, this is a sparsely populated area so no one else on the road for me to hit and careful application of successively lower gears had me stopped pretty quickly.

Did a careful u-turn in a neibours driveway and headed for home very slowly with my hazard flashers on and my right hand on the hand brake lever, just in case.

Made it back home with no problems and not needing to touch the brakes. With the truck back in the car port I checked both rear brakes (this Defender has a Salisbury rear axle with a disk brake conversion, btw) but nothing seemed unusual, the reservoir was well topped up and nothing looked like it was leaking.

Took a slow turn up and down the driveway. Everything felt ok, good pressure on the pedal, but skidding all the time due to the snow. Took it out onto the ploughed road and progressively increased the speed whilst braking hard on each cycle. Everything checked out. Like nothing had ever happened.

So, was one (or both) of my rear brake disks and/or calipers frozen? This has never happened to me before, but I'm a veritable snow driving noob.

One thing to consider: The last thing I used the truck for yesterday (after dark, temperature was well below freezing) was to take some gear round to my shop which is up a hill and under several feet of snow just now so it's low range, diff-lock on all the way. All four brakes would have well and truly smothered in snow by the time I got back to the house and I hardly used the brakes at all on the trip. Does that provide a clue?

All observations / recommendations very welcome.

Thanks, David

[exmod110]

Very possible, the snow will stick to the warm rotor then turn to ice.. and ice is not a good surface to use for friction as we all know. next time with slight pressure on the brakes back up several feet to remove as much snow/moisture before you park it. might help.
Don