brake anti rattle clips

#1

are either the front (little round ones that attach to the pad) or the rear (largish steel ones outside the caliper) needed for track use? obviously i don’t care about noise but will omission of the clips result in uneven pad wear?

#2

The one time that I left the rear spring clips off I got funny pad wear. On the fronts if the pads have the spring clip on the piston side, leave them on. If they don’t have the clips, don’t fret about them.

#3

I remove the front round things because they make it harder to put the pads in place. But I experimented with removing the rear anti-rattle clips and I had to put them back on. The rear pads will shift without those clips.

The result is worse then simple uneven pad wear. The pads will shift such that some of the pad surface isn’t even on the rotor anymore.

In retrospect it was kind of dumb to experiment with removing things from my braking system. But I figured “anti-rattle clips, who cares if my rear brakes rattle?” It turns out that a better name for them would be "hold your rear brake pads on clips. And that puts things in a different perspective.

So now I do different dumb experiments.

#4

thanks for the responses. on a related note, do other folks see uneven pad wear, particularly on the fronts? the outside pad wears at least twice as fast as the inside. the caliper seems to slide easily and smoothly but i haven’t taken it apart yet, trying to finish the year on my current parts before i do a winter refresh. maybe it’s a heat issue? my car has no ducting in place.

#5

jtower wrote:

I think that everyone experiences this to some degree. I’d always assumed that it was because my ducting cools my inside rotor better then the outside rotor, but since you don’t have any ducting, it’s hard to understand why your inside rotor would get cooled better.

Maybe the inside face of the rotor just plain gets cooled better without any ducting. Air flow is complicated so it’s hard to make guesses about it.

If the difference is significant, swap inside and outside pads.

In any event, put some ducting in.

#6

With floating calipers if you get uneven pad wear its usually one of three things:

  • Worn or hung caliper slider. Grease may fix it, it may not.
  • Bad caliper. Rebuild or replace.
  • Bad brake line. This usually causes one pair of pads to wear faster then the other caliper and not one pad vs the other.
#7

I’d suspect the caliper sliders - if they don’t move easily then the outer part of the caliper will continue pressing the pad to the rotor face even when the brake is released.
bruce

#8

mahoneyj wrote:

[quote]With floating calipers if you get uneven pad wear its usually one of three things:

  • Worn or hung caliper slider. Grease may fix it, it may not.
  • Bad caliper. Rebuild or replace.
  • Bad brake line. This usually causes one pair of pads to wear faster then the other caliper and not one pad vs the other.[/quote]

Replacing a cracked rotor today and looking at my front brakes I have uneven wear on one side. All pads have about 3/8 left on them and the right outside pad is absolutely gone. Caliper and slide appear just fine. You mentioned greasing the slide, what grease would you use?.

#9

rackeu wrote:

[quote]mahoneyj wrote:

[quote]With floating calipers if you get uneven pad wear its usually one of three things:

  • Worn or hung caliper slider. Grease may fix it, it may not.
  • Bad caliper. Rebuild or replace.
  • Bad brake line. This usually causes one pair of pads to wear faster then the other caliper and not one pad vs the other.[/quote]

Replacing a cracked rotor today and looking at my front brakes I have uneven wear on one side. All pads have about 3/8 left on them and the right outside pad is absolutely gone. Caliper and slide appear just fine. You mentioned greasing the slide, what grease would you use?.[/quote]

Is odd for 1 of 4 pads to show significantly more wear then the rest. My outside pads wear the most, but it’s pretty symmetric right-to-left.

Use high temp anti-seize. Also use some on your wheel studs so your lug nuts don’t gall.

#10

I’ve always used synthetic wheel bearing grease on those, but that may be because I don’t know any better.

#11

Synthetic brake grease is probably the best choice, with synthetic wheel bearing grease running a close second.

If the calipers are ATE, the rubber guide bushings need to be replaced about every other year on a track/race car. If the bushings are fresh and the guide bolts are clean and shinny, no lube is needed.

#12

I always us a synthetic break grease. Its available at most auto parts stores. I got my last tube at NAPA.

#13

I have been using ATE Plastilube.