Spies

I thought I could hear a metallic sound which seems to become audible around 20mph, thinking it might be a wheel bearing I got out and went around checking wheel temps by feel. The NS front was a bit warmer than the other so I (perhaps foolishly) checked the brake disc temps by hand. The OS disc was cool to the touch whereas the NS was significantly hotter, the car isn't pulling under breaking or under normal driving. The NS was the side where I had a stuck back side pad but that was freed up and greased.

Any ideas?

GaryB

Sticky caliper.

loftust

Chad!

x2

I had this problem on mine not so long ago. I wasn't getting a noise though, I could just tell at junctions etc that it struggled to roll when on a slight incline. Since having a mess with it, it's been fine since (about 5/6 weeks). All I did was take the caliper off, pump the piston out a fair bit (about 7 pumps on the pedal), then I got a bit of brake fluid in a syringe, lifted the rubber seal and put a few drops of fluid on the piston. There is a ridge that the rubber sits in, I had to lift the seal enough to get the fluid past this. Then I used a G clamp to push it back in. Pumped it bach out and pushed it back in probably 10 times or so, and since doing that it's been ok. Normally it'll just be a build up of crap causing it to stick. Most people don't seem to try and fix it though, and just buy new ones.....

HTH,

Chad.

Spies

A sticking caliper isn't really what I wanted to hear with the valve adjustment and brake fluid change to do in the next week.

So a pad that's stuck in the bridge couldn't cause this?

loftust

You have a sticky caliper.

Re-greasing the pad is a waste of time and may only alleviate the symptom (not the cause) for a short period of time.

Spies

That's fair enough, I wasn't disputing it, I was just wondering if a pad that doesn't freely move in it's slider could cause similar symptoms.

Will be replacing the pads anyway when I do the fluid so will take a closer look at it then.

loftust

If replacing the pads, you should replace the disks. Depending how long this has been going on, it may also be warped.

Brakes International are a good, cheap source.

The bond between the grease/pad/slider is not enough to heat the disk unless assisted by a sticky caliper. Sticky pads usually make a scraping sort of noise.

Spies

Reason for replacing the pads is when I inspected them the actual brake material was coming away from the backing, should the discs be replaced even if they are not excessively scored or warped?

Not really wanting to cut any corners 'pardon the pun', as stopping is high on my list of things I should be able to do!

loftust

It sounds as if the pads got so hot that they delaminated...this is not normal. You could check the runout on the disks to see if the rotation is uneven...this should give a good idea if you need to replace or not.

If it were me, I'd replace them.