Front Brakes Locked - when pushing car by hand!

[kjmclark]

This is a 2006 Forester, currently with no transmission in it (it was a manual!) 

 

My son's friend got a bit of a steal when this Subie died on his Mom when she tried to take off from a light.  Something went very wrong with the transmission, and the car quickly became semi-scrap.  Semi, because the friend's parents said he could have the car if he got it working again.  What teen boy would pass on an almost-free car?

 

Anyway, they towed the car back to their house, and as the three boys were pushing the car into the garage, it suddenly stopped dead in its tracks and wouldn't budge.  They were pushing it backward into the garage, and everything was going fine (the car was rolling, no problem).  The new owner decided the point wasn't right, so they stopped, and tried to push it forward to change the angle a bit.

 

And that's when it stopped moving.  Rolling fine at first, try going the other way, brakes locked.  Tried pushing it backward again, nothing, brakes locked.

 

I brought my floor jack over so we could jack it off the wheels and roll it the few inches it needed to get in the garage.  I assumed it was the rear that was locked, since the parking brake and hill holder both work on the rear.  Fortunately, that wasn't it, because they turned out to have a drain hole *right* under the differential!  When I jacked the front end, the car rolled back into the garage no problem.

 

But what would make the front brakes lock like that?  They didn't start the car, so the hydraulics weren't involved.  We'll probably find out more when we take the wheels off to put it on blocks, but in the meantime, it would be nice to know what happened.

[Fairtax4me]

Does it have axles in it still?

[idosubaru]

I'm betting the hill holder locked up.

 

Or:

Axle if attached is freewheeling and could catch.

Axle not attached means wheel bearings could be rusty.

 

Rotors can rust from sitting and have high and low spots that grab.