Rear wheel burning smell...

[exitwound]

Tonight, after coming home from work, I noticed a scent of something like burning metal, that smell that comes from the blue smoke when you fry a motherboard, that scent that isn't burning rubber or burning flesh. It's a distinct burning metal smell. It is obviously coming from the rear driver wheel. The car suffered no degenerate effects from this on its 3 mile drive from work.

Question is, what is it most likely to be? We had to adjust the e-brake when installing the rear wheels a few months ago. The brakes work fine and lead no indication that it's them.

What steps should I take next? My garage is 12 miles away. Would the trip to there be okay to take to take the rotors and calipers off?

Basically, I'm looking for direction.

THanks!

[bholmes]

sounds kinda like a brake issue to me. The piston could be sticking, the parking brake could be sticking there's a few thigns it could be...maybe a pinched line and so it's not returning the fluid properly. But that's my guess. I guess it depends on how bad it is whether or not to drive it. I supose as long as it's not draggin the wheel, drive it there rather slowly if towing is not an option. You can always replace rotor...right? But i'd just jack up the wheel I suspect to be faulty and see how it spins. If it spins hard you know it's a brake issue.

[drift a 944]

ditto

seen this problem on a few other cars and they all ended up being a siezed caliper.

[Tishabet]

Agree on the sticking/frozen caliper. After driving, put your hand against the wheel... it will feel hot. If you keep on driving the car with a seriously dragging caliper, you'll eventually
a) warp the rotor
b) burn through your pads
Switching out a caliper is not very difficult. You can either rebuild/regrease your caliper or get a new or good used one and replace. I recall 944ecology.com selling me a good used one for my '89 for around $50.

[Brando]

Could be...

Parking brake shoe stuck.
Piston in the caliper stuck.
Brake pad lining separated from backing (seen this happen a few times!).

[exitwound]

I will try to get the wheel off tomorrow to take a look. Thanks for the advice!