Hoping I don't jinx anything - but spent the last few days running up from Atlanta to Baltimore, MD to Cumberland, MD - about 900 miles over 12 driving hours and the blue dragon wagon has been running like a champ. I got a little sniffle of hot brakes down towards the end of mountain side of the road trip, but nothing major I don't think. The little 5.0 is getting about 20-21 MPG, too. Here we are just outside Sidling Hill taking in the sights.
Every once in a while, at the foot of a long hill, you will smell the brakes, and if it is a really long, steep hill and the car is well laden, you may even get smoke off them. It does not seem to do any harm. I regularly get in excess of 60,000 miles out of a set of brakes on these cars.. The mileage you are getting is pretty good, too, especially if you have a single exhaust system. Moving to a dual 2 1/4 does yield a few more mpg. About 3 or so mpg plus it gives you about 20 more horsepower which can come in very handy on one of these big cars.
The only real hot brakes I'd get was on US 19 between Cherokee and Maggie Valley when pulling an RV in the Smokies. Some cars smoked black and smelled terrible. As Mike said it's normal in steep hills. Just try not to ride the brakes much..... unless headed over a cliff! Another place I remember is dropping down into Salt lake City on I-80.
The first time I had smoke off the brakes was on the North Shore of the St. Lawrence River. At the foot of one hill, the car in front decided to stop and make a turn. By the time the 79 Thunderbird was stopped, sure enough, smoke! Wasn't even towing. Then again, it is a real roller coaster of a road. The second time was that same car, but with a 4,800 pound trailer, without trailer brakes, coming down the Niagara Escarpment, and a red light at the bottom. That old car managed the stop with no problem but there sure was some smoking hot front brake action going on! Still got 70,000 miles out of those brakes, too. When those two times happened, the car was about 13 years old and still had the factory installed, original brakes in place. I may have horseshoes somewhere unmentionable.
We spent the weekend up in the hills of New York / Pennsylvania. We had zero technology available. That was a blast. We camped along the shores of the Delaware river. We've put about 1300 miles on the Beast up to this point and she's rolling right along. Here's a view from the top of one of the mountains near the river Oh - thanks for the input on the brakes. Certainly only smelled anything on the down-side of the big hills. Also - I live just NE of Atlanta, between Athens and Stone Mountain in Loganville.
Good for you, Skink; I'm psyched to see you're using the Squire. There's some beautiful countryside in PA and NY State; thanks for the pics and enjoy the rest of your trip.
Home - 2090 miles total and about 1 quart of oil through the whole thing. I'll get a bunch of pictures later, tonight I'm a tired mofo
