Braking problem, caliper or??

Clarkey

Clarkey

Clarkey

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
18,306
So, I replaced my front pads yesterday since the EBC yellows were apparently worn almost to the backing plate.

Did the drivers side, no issue, pads heavily worn although the inner one probably half the material on that the outer had. Both very thin though so not to worry.

Take the passenger side ones out to find that they still have life left in them, much less worn than the drivers side ones. Curious I think, and get on with changing them, slightly miffed at not getting the best value out of that set of pads.


Onto the bedding in process, for the pads I got this involved doing 8 consecutive full force stops from 90-30, kms naturally... Here is where the curious issue becomes noticable, I can't brake very hard at all, the left front keeps locking up (No ABS right now, thats another story related to a hub swap, but it was probably masking the problem before anyway, at least now it is obvious).

As said though, seems like the other 3 have a lot more to give but the LF locks very easily. Combined with the uneven pad wear, would this point to a dodgy caliper on the RF? I'm a total noob when it comes to brakes, just put pads in when worn out and press the pedal.

FWIW, neither brake is binding, the wheels will freewheel happily when lifted. This isn't something new since the pad change either, I noticed it last week but just put it down to a slippery surface, I don't normally brake heavily on the road.
 
Left side locking before right side would suggest left side applying harder. Right side wearing faster than left side would suggest right side applying harder. Which to me would say it could be more to do with the discs rather than the pads or calipers?
 
Sticking sliders or pistons on the caliper which are slow to retract would be the first place I would look.
 
Have the calipers been refurbished at any point? I found the calipers in my 14a were pretty stuck when I took them off to fit my K-Sports, so may be worth a check on yours.
 
It sounds to me like the opposing part of the right hand brake caliper isn't moving freely. So on the left side the piston pushes and the opposing forces cause the outer pad to make contact as the cage it is mounted in can slide freely.

On the right caliper if the cage is not free to move only the pad next to the piston is being pushed onto the disk, thus causing the uneven wear. Maybe that is why it has also worn so quickly as only one pad of the two on the right hand side is doing the majority of the work.

Strip down the caliper and clean the slides up. This is assuming you have opposed type calipers where there is only one piston on the main body of the cailper.
 
Are you running coilovers, or any kind of non standard suspension? Any serious imbalance in corner weights can cause this.

I'm guessing you have checked the tyre pressures are ok....
 
Thanks, I will either strip and clean or replace the caliper and see what happens. Seemed free enough when sliding the piston in, perhaps a bit tight on the last few mm of travel.

It does have coilovers, but I don't think it's a corner balance related thing, done a number of trackdays with the same configuration and never had braking issues there, might get the weights measured though just to see.
 
Take the right hand caliper back off, check it slides ok and fully press in the pistons, then whilst free, stand gently on the brake pedal, if the pedal jerks down or takes lots of force to move the pistons then the caliper is toast.
 
Clarkey said:
Thanks, I will either strip and clean or replace the caliper and see what happens. Seemed free enough when sliding the piston in, perhaps a bit tight on the last few mm of travel.

It does have coilovers, but I don't think it's a corner balance related thing, done a number of trackdays with the same configuration and never had braking issues there, might get the weights measured though just to see.
Click to expand...

It's not the piston we're all on about. The other half of the caliper moves on two slides as well. These can bind up causing the issue you have. You need to strip that half off the caliper off, clean up the slides, re-grease and reassemble.
 
Take out the slider pins, check how freely they move, grease then both up with silicone grease.

Clean up all the pad retainer clips

Bleed each side to flush out any crap in the fluid

Reasemble, I'd tackle the front right first, sounds like it's sticking.
 
The sliders are likely a red herring here - it's obvious when they're gunked up/not moving freely. They need to be really quite bad to cause a noticable effect under barking. Clarkey seems to know his way about the car so would have picked this up when taking them off already.

Only other thing I could think of is if perhaps the flexi has collapsed inside giving little / no pressure to the piston

Checking the piston as per Fuzz's post above makes the most sense to me - Tbh given the price of e36 calipers I'd probably just change it.
 
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