Truck Repair: front wheels, caliper piston, wheel bearings

Question
is it normal for the front wheels on a 93 chevy 30 van to get warm? if not what would cause it

Answer
Hello R,
That van has disc brakes on the front, and disc brakes get hot, especially if used a lot. That heat will be transfered to the wheels to some extent.
Even with the brakes not used extremely, they still rub just a little, even when released, and generate some heat.

The question here though, is the heat you are noticing normal.
What works well is to find a somewhat similar vehicle, that has been driven pretty much the same way as yours for, say, about an hour, and see how hot the wheels feel on it, compared to yours.

Now, if yours are smoking hot from just normal driving, there is always the possibility of a caliper piston sticking, but that would normally be on just one side.
If both seem that hot, there is a possibility that the master cylinder, or a restriction in a brake line is not allowing the fluid to return to the reservoir.
Water in the brake system, turning to steam and expanding when hot can also sometimes cause that. A good bleeding would take care of that.

Then there is the possibility of the wheel bearings being bad, or too tight, but that also would usually just happen on one side or the other, unless the bearings were both adjusted too tight.

But everything could also be just normal as can be, depending on how hot we are talking about.

Van