samwhich wrote:Well the van seems to stop fine with usual driving but on the odd occasion particularly when wet and I have to slam the brakes, it seems like either the front oor rear brakes lock up and the van just keeps skidding instead of slowing down. Scares the sh#t out of you! Starting to get a squeaky/ scratchy sounds coming from front brakes too now I noticed which become worse slightly on braking. It's like the front brakes are doing too much share of the work...starting to get confused with this now. Might be safest to just book it in and get them checked over.
Do you have ABS fitted?
The load proportioning valve may have an adjustment?? Often it's just an adjustment to the length of the link or chain (if fitted) ....to allow more or less braking effort to the rear wheels, depending on the load of course. The more load in the back, obviously the more braking is sent to the rear wheels...and vice-versa.
Normally with very little to no load in the back...the front brakes will do ~80% of the braking effort, this % goes down in proportion to the load in the back of the van to a point where the front & rear will share the effort ~60-40% when van is fully loaded....not an exact figure but you get the idea. This can be seen easily on a racing motorcycle, often the rear wheel will be in the air when under hard braking....which means ~100% of the braking effort is done by the front wheel....kinda makes the rear brake irrelevant in that case.
As an experiment to eliminate the rear brakes as the problem, add pair of vise grips to the flexible brake line going to the rear brakes....not silly tight, just enough to close off the hose. Then go for a drive around your local area and see if the symptoms persist. Grinding noises from disc brakes is usually a sign of very worn/low pads. Have you had the wheels off to have look for anything obvious?? If you're not comfortable doing it yourself, it's best to get a professional or someone who knows what they're looking at to sort it. It's actually a fairly simple hydraulic system...not too much to go wrong.
Lord Knobrot