How bad do your rear brakes have to get?

Post by **Welly** » Thu May 03, 2007 7:33 am

I jacked up each rear corner last night and gave each wheel a good spin. Each wheel would rotate about 3 to 4 turns before stopping and I could clearly hear the sound of pad-on-disc.

I got it to free up completely by working the handbrake on the spinning wheel so that the shock of stopping the wheel free'd off the caliper a bit but when I stabbed the brake pedal they grinded again like the caliper could not back off enough.

Clearly it would be a good idea to service the calipers, clean up and lubricate etc, and new pads but should I be concerned about it yet? the discs themselves are very good and run clean across the whole contact surface with no scores so they could stay on.

stevenlizuk · Post by **stevenlizuk** » Thu May 03, 2007 3:22 pm

I would have thought that some rub was inevitable as there is no negative pressure to pull the pads away from the disc.
That amount of friction isn't going to slow the car so I woudn't worry about it.

Check the wheels for heating if your worried about them.
Hot wheels mean sticky calipers.

Cheers
Steve

jameslxdt · Post by **jameslxdt** » Thu May 03, 2007 6:56 pm

my rear calipers are completley shot, i tried overhauling them, did bugger all, end up making one worse, d8 ones are £112 each + vat
if your mot is got a while left and the discs aint rusty as fook leave it alone

mjb · Post by **mjb** » Fri May 04, 2007 8:22 am

Mine were that bad you had to put a fair amount of effort into getting a wheel to turn a revolution! Mind you the discs had mostly disintegrated and deposited LOADS of crap all over the handbrake shoes (which were the main cause of my problem)

mbell666 · Post by **mbell666** » Fri May 04, 2007 8:46 am

If you can spin the disk by hand then there not binding much. If its difficult to spin the wheel then you may want to do something.

Overhauling them is a bit of waste of time as pug only sell the seal kit and not the pistons. If they are binding the pistons is probably corroded (*), the plating near the groove for the dust seal tends to get corroded. So normally you will get the problem after fitting new pads.

When one of mine was binding i had to go to a scrap yard, ended up with caliper with knackered seals but less corroded piston. So far it has done the trick (touch wood etc.)

If you know somewhere you can get new pistons, then it may be worth doing.

(*) should be able to get a pic of my old piston if you want to see.