My brakes are P****** me off!

[Gambit]

A couple of weeks ago I had 3G Discs and Mintex pads fitted to my car.
The near side rear scored straight away on one of the clips, and after a week of driving the offside front has done it 2, but not as bad.
Offside front squeals.
Near side rear, urrrr farts. On light braking the pad touches then misses, almost as if the disc was thicker at one point.
TLM (the garage doing the work) fitted a new rear today and it scored straight away?????
This was the first time they have ever fitted 3G discs and I think it will be the last as they are almost as unhappy as I am.
3G were recommended to them on a form they had, by 2 companies 1 I can't remember and the other was Envy and had Kevin's name on it.

If anyone has any sensible input please share it, as the farting and squealing noises are driving me mad.

[Martin F]

Errr something's not right here, there's no way the disks should score straight after fitment.

Couple of q's

Do you know what exactly is scoring the disk? If its the clips like you say above then i'm sorry but they aren't fitting them properly.

Do you have Jap spec or UK spec brakes ?

[Gambit]

Jap brakes, The garage bought new clips after the first bodge apparently my clips were in old and in bad shape.
Odd 1, where the grooves are on the discs seem to be clipping the pads about 2cm down the disc.
Would be odd if they were fitting them wrong as they built there own race supra so I presume they know what they are doing......

The garage: http://www.tlmotorsport.com/

[Martin F]

There are actually pad wear devices on the brake pads that scrape against the disk when you're pads are past their best, but i'm discounting them as you say you've had new pads fitted as well.

This is really odd, as there is no way they should do this and the only way i can think it would happen is if they had fitted the clips and springs incorrectly. People have used 3G disks in the past with no problems so i very much doubt it's the disks.

I don't know if this is actually possible (somebody else may) but you haven't been sent UK disks and they're trying to fit them to Jap disks ? I would have thought that the extra 27mm on the front disk would mean that it would foul the caliper, but its not something i've actually tried to do.

[Gambit]

I will take pictures tomorrow.

[Gambit]

The pictures:

Near side front - No problems.
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/2364/p10100034hr.jpg

Off side rear - No problems.
http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/2140/p10100045jz.jpg

[Gambit]

Near side rear - Oh my God.
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/8611/p10100089ie.jpg
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/6158/p10100090mq.jpg
http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/1337/p10100101gx.jpg
Note how it catches.......

Front from top.
http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/6360/p10100067qx.jpg

I have a similar ring on the passenger side front which wasn't there initially.
Who is to blame????

[Martin F]

When you said you were going to take some pictures, i thought you mean't with the wheels off :p

It's hard to see anything from those pics. However i think i may have spotted something but can you take one more pic.

This one
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/8611/p10100089ie.jpg

but from further away so that i can see more of the disk in relation to the caliper

[Gambit]

Like this?

Rear.
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/4531/p51900119yo.jpg

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/573/p51900129oj.jpg

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/1529/p51900135ih.jpg

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/6008/p51900140bx.jpg

[Gambit]

More.

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/629/p51900156kk.jpg

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/6687/p51900164vl.jpg

http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/1705/p51900178wi.jpg

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/228/p51900191vf.jpg

[Gambit]

And more.

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/228/p51900191vf.jpg

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/7039/p51900205hq.jpg

Front.

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/7880/p51900229wv.jpg

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/2397/p51900237vm.jpg

[Martin F]

Well bang goes my idea, i thought for a minute that the left disk had been fitted to the right, and the right to the left and therefore the slots were not passing the correct way.

However it doesn't look like there are any shims in there which i think there should be. I can check on the EPC when i get home and will let you know.

Although i doubt that will be responsible for your problem, but maybe another piece of the mounting hardware is missing as well. Will check EPC.

[Martin F]

Does it look like they have used any copper slip around the edges of the pads as i can't see evidence of any, but it could just be the photos.

[Gambit]

Thought you were going to crack it then.

Copper stuff like grease there was on the clips originally.
The rear sounds like the disc is warped, remember riding a bicycle with a warped wheel and the pad touches in one particular place as the wheel rotates, well that's what this wheel does under very light braking.

The front disc originally scrapped the pad when cornering right so I took the car back and when it came back to me it no longer scrapped when cornering but squeals when braking. I wish I had kept my mouth shut!

This is really beginning to F*** me off, imagine being in traffic moving very slowly (less than 5mph) and every time you touch the brakes, eeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, right to stationary. Sooner or later I'm going to loose my cool and then God help everyone involved!

[Martin F]

Well it defenitely doesn't look like they have put the anti-squeal shims back in (or fitted any if they were missing originally). This will most likely account for the squealing when you are braking. Take a look at the pictures below for all the bits that should be there.



Unfortunately that doesn't really explain the scraping. Either your calipers are sticking (which is quite common on Jap spec calipers) and they haven't free'd them up or things haven't been put back together properly.

[Gambit]

A friend of mine suggested that maybe the drive shaft was slightly out of alignment and that this would make the disc not run true to the calliper is this possible. Like this.

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/1465/image15fy.jpg

Obviously not as much as the picture.
This would explain why at slow braking the pad touches one part of the disc first.

[Martin F]

No, it's not a live rear axle and that wouldn't explain the front.

You need to be logical about it as well. You're car never did this before the last batch of work so whatever the fault it has to be related to the recent work.

[cossack]

this might sound a bit obvious but could there be the possability of a bad pad, ie some thing that has been pressed into it during its production that is ripping the disc appart, the last time i saw scrapes like that was on a mates car that had the pad placed face down on a garage floor and when the caliper piston was pushed back to allow the pad in, there was a lump of metal stuck to the face of the pad which wasnt noticed, it ruined the dics!!!

[Gambit]

Hopefully I will get to the bottom of this soon. The car has been booked into an impartial garage who normally work on Ferraris and other top end stuff, who are going to strip the brakes down and tell me who is at fault.
And we know what there's going to be then don't we..... That's right, a raw!
:mad: :wtf: :argue: YOUR ALL A BUNCH OF!!! :cowboy:

[Martin F]

Let us know as i'd be interested to hear on this one. Nothing amazing in fitting slotted disks to a car which is why i can't really figure out what they have done, or what has gone wrong.

[Gambit]

Ok. Today the beast went into a garage called Midland Classic Restoration on the A449 between Worcester and Kidderminster. I'm promoting them because I think there work was BANGIN'

Results:
Rear discs not centered
Hand brake shoes n/s/r to tight = This was causing the farting sound or warped effect when light braking.
o/s/f anti rattle shim broken
2 x pad springs o/s/f missing
front caliper slides badly worn and boots split = not sure what that means?

Odd 1:
There is a large clip attached to the outside pad on the n/s/f, but on the o/s/f it is on the inside disc, they weren't sure if this was a f*** up but they ground it off as it was catching and that was what was making the crunching noise when the car came to stationary.

The garage did 3hrs labour at ?30 an hour + vat and stripped all 4 wheels and cured both squeals. They then spent the best part of 30mins explaining what they found to me + used the digital camera that I supplied to take some shots (these are next). So if your in the Worcester area and want a good garage, there you go!

[Gambit]

Pics not sure what we are seeing here.

http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/1672/p60200060qj.jpg

http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/2338/p60200059xo.jpg

http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/9800/p60200052mf.jpg

http://img159.imageshack.us/img159/5804/p60200047sy.jpg

[suprarob]

Its good you have sorted this Gambit

I,ve changed disc,s and pads on a few cars and its always been a fairly simple job

when it comes to doing this job any average mechanic should be quite capable of doing a good job. It doesn,t say much for the guy,s who originally installed your disc,c and pads

Is there any improvement over your original disc,s and pads ?

[Martin F]

when it comes to doing this job any average mechanic should be quite capable of doing a good job. It doesn,t say much for the guy,s who originally installed your disc,c and pads



Well said Rob, there doesn't seem to be anything particularly challenging or Supra specific in what you've described there Gambit.

The only thing i would watch out for is this bit


front caliper slides badly worn and boots split = not sure what that means?


This is quite a regular occurence on J-Spec calipers and you really need to remove the carriers, clean up the sliding pieces, re-grease them and fit new boots. They may well have done this for you already.

[Chris Wilson]

Get someone to put the anti rattle clips in properly. Personally I'd bin them, and the anti aqueal shims, if fitted, as you get a better pedal feel and less pad drag without them. Closely followed by binning the excessively aggressively grooved discs, which chew up pads for fun, and make whirring noises with some pad compounds. A plain Jane Toyota OE disc is best unless you buy proper race discs on ally bells.

The anti rattle clips shouldn't be near to, let alone be touching the disc surfaces.

[Suprash]

Get someone to put the anti rattle clips in properly. Personally I'd bin them, and the anti aqueal shims, if fitted, as you get a better pedal feel and less pad drag without them. Closely followed by binning the excessively aggressively grooved discs, which chew up pads for fun, and make whirring noises with some pad compounds. A plain Jane Toyota OE disc is best unless you buy proper race discs on ally bells.

The anti rattle clips shouldn't be near to, let alone be touching the disc surfaces.

Chris, how much would a set of proper race discs on ally bells cost :confused: