Smoke out of both front wheels (1 Viewer)

[Alaska2NY]

I have an FJ60, 84.
Thought the brakes were frozen so we replaced the calipers and rubber lines.
I left it with a trusted mechanic to rebuild the front end and make sure the 4 wheel drive was in working order as that seemed like a bit of a beast project to tackle early on my own.
But now the car is smoking. Hear a strange sound in 4th gear. It wasn’t getting max power. And the something inside the knuckles was so hot that it was smoking on both the driver and passenger side.
Going now to pick up new wheel bearings and seals. Any other thoughts I’m missing?

thanks for any input!

 

[mongoose2231]

Interestingly enough, I cooked a rotor by employing s*** calipers from autozone. The brakes dragged, and I knew it, but was a couple miles from home and had to get there. I just ordered all toyota parts to rebuild a set of calipers I have sitting around and to replace the autozone s*** ones that I threw money on. More than likely, your brakes are dragging.

 

[g-man]

I hope that picture is from before he rebuilt your knuckles. That is NOT a rebuilt knuckle. this is:

 

[g-man]

Maybe your mechanic got grease on the brake discs that is burning off? Be sure to inspect your brakes before tearing into the knuckles. Get some brake cleaner in a spray can and clean your discs. Make sure you have no brake fluid dripping from your calipers or hose...it is flammable and when contacting hot disc can smoke and catch fire.
Do this by having someone depress the pedal while you watch with the wheel off.

 

[Alaska2NY]

Thanks for the response -

he didn’t rebuild the knuckles,definitely something I need to do. But got the wheels off and the drivers side rotor is about an eighth of a size bigger!

thinking it’s causing the brakes to drag and cook the fluid throughout.
Replacing both rotors and pads now.

 

[Seth S]

I once had an old BMW 1600....one day a caliper seized while coming down a long mountain pass. It wasn't locked enough to stop the wheel but it dragged the pads in it badly enough so that all the grease in the bearing left the hub in the form of white smoke. Interestingly enough all I did was repack the bearing and exercise the caliper a couple of times and it was never a problem after that.

 

[g-man]

What did your mechanic rebuild in the front end? If he repacked or replaced the wheel bearings then he had to take off the two 54mm nuts. if he way over tightened them while reinstalling it could cause undo pressure on the wheel bearings and perhaps cause them to smoke. See if they turned blue. Ask him if he set the pre-load on the hub? like this:

 

[Seth S]

What did your mechanic rebuild in the front end? If he repacked or replaced the wheel bearings then he had to take off the two 54mm nuts. if he way over tightened them while reinstalling it could cause undo pressure on the wheel bearings and perhaps cause them to smoke. See if they turned blue. Ask him if he set the pre-load on the hub? like this:

good call. I'll bet a lot of people misread the second torque number as FT LBS when in fact its IN-LBS. 12x difference in torque.