Delica Canada | Mitsubishi Van Club

Hello folks,

Just a quick question here. Today while I was driving my van to work, I went over a few bumps in the road and noticed the red exclamation mark warning light flashed on my dashboard for a brief second or two. Research on here says it's most likely low brake fluid. I'm going to check the level at after I'm done work today.

But something else happened last week with the van and I'm wondering if this is part of the problem. I decided to give my van a wash, and when I did that I noticed that the passenger side wheel rim was quite hot. In fact, when I sprayed water on it, steam came off the rim. Yikes!! Anyway, I finished washing off the van and let it sit for a while. I took it out about an hour later on the highway, and when I checked the rim again, it was fine. Nice and cool like the other front rim.

I'm thinking somethings up with my brake(s) maybe? Perhaps there's a leak somewhere because something was seized up and then came free? As you can see here, I'm mechanically declined at the best of times, but I know this might be serious, because brakes are important.

If anyone has any insight on this, I'd appreciate it. If I do need brake parts, is this something I could source locally? I'm in Ontario and my van is a 1993 Delica L300 Super Exceed. I'm planning a big road trip next weekend, but not if the brakes are not up to snuff:(

As always, all help, encouragement, kind words, lovely sentiments, etc are always appreciated:)

Cheers Phil

I'm pretty sure the exclamation point is the parking brake indicator. Hot wheel would indicate to me a stuck caliper. It could be that the e brake is stuck on, or the caliper is stuck otherwise...

The brake warning light (exclamation mark) comes on with the handbrake and/or low fluid- Mitsubishi was too cheap to put in an extra light just for brake fluid.

One hot rim is troubling. It's either the brake dragging (likely) or the wheel bearings failing (less likely, but far more exciting).

Dragging brakes is usually the sliding bolts seizing up. Grab a brakes workshop manual from the downloads section. The pins are easy to remove, clean, grease, and reinstall, especially if you do one at a time. Use silicone grease, don't use regular wheel bearing grease as it swells the rubber seals and causes the pins to bind up even quicker.

The combination of a brake dragging and a fluid leak would suggest that it's time for a thorough brake service:
Ideally you'd remove the calipers and clean out the sliding pin holes thoroughly, check the pistons and bores, and fit new rubber seals, but it might be cheaper to just fit new calipers. The same with the rear brake cylinders.

Tanks for the help fellas. I have a friend with a great garage at his house who's offered to help me with this. I had planned a ten hour round trip to an Octoberfest Party next weekend, but that won't be happening if I don't get to looking after this first.

Now I'm just hoping that if I do need any parts they can be sourced locally.

Cheers, Phil