Bracket on inner brake pad

Post by **prwood** » 27 Nov 2017, 07:24

I removed the rear brake pads for the first time since owning this car, and I found this curiosity:

: Bracket attached to inner brake pad.

It was a bracket attached to the rear of the brake pad, that directly clipped it into the cylinder of the brake piston. Admittedly, my experience with brakes is even more narrow than my experience with cars in general, so this isn't saying much, but I haven't seen this before. Is this normal?

Post by **abscate** » 27 Nov 2017, 08:07

Yep. You snap that into the piston which is inboard on the caliper, put the other pad on the sliders tight against the rotor, then fit the caliper into position. If it doesn't fit, you open either the bleeder or just ease the brake line on the caliper, then push the piston in as far as it goes, catching the brake fluid onto a paper towel. You will only get about 10 ml or so.

This is the best time to run 250 ml of fresh brake fluid through each caliper, as you don't have air in them and you won't have to bleed them. The first brake pump after you do this will be long - the pedal will go near the floor, so don't drive it until you pump the pedal through a few times.

Conflicting schools of thought- I am in the "wire brush and scrape the hell out of the caliper slides, then grease liberally with grease" so that the pads slide nicely in our New England winter hell on cars.

Post by **prwood** » 27 Nov 2017, 08:24

abscate wrote: 27 Nov 2017, 08:07 Yep. You snap that into the piston which is inboard on the caliper, put the other pad on the sliders tight against the rotor, then fit the caliper into position. If it doesn't fit, you open either the bleeder or just ease the brake line on the caliper, then push the piston in as far as it goes, catching the brake fluid onto a paper towel. You will only get about 10 ml or so.

This is the best time to run 250 ml of fresh brake fluid through each caliper, as you don't have air in them and you won't have to bleed them. The first brake pump after you do this will be long - the pedal will go near the floor, so don't drive it until you pump the pedal through a few times.

Ok. I'm looking at the photos of new parts on FCP Euro and I see it there. Maybe it was there on the other brake pads I have done and I just don't remember, but I am fairly certain my Toyota and Subaru brake pads didn't have this...

Post by **Rattnalle** » 27 Nov 2017, 08:31

The brackets are normal for these cars although I guess not every kind of car might have them. When new they're quite a tight fit and I've actually had to bend a few to get them inside.

abscate wrote: 27 Nov 2017, 08:07 Yep. You snap that into the piston which is inboard on the caliper, put the other pad on the sliders tight against the rotor, then fit the caliper into position. If it doesn't fit, you open either the bleeder or just ease the brake line on the caliper, then push the piston in as far as it goes, catching the brake fluid onto a paper towel. You will only get about 10 ml or so.

This is the best time to run 250 ml of fresh brake fluid through each caliper, as you don't have air in them and you won't have to bleed them. The first brake pump after you do this will be long - the pedal will go near the floor, so don't drive it until you pump the pedal through a few times.

Conflicting schools of thought- I am in the "wire brush and scrape the hell out of the caliper slides, then grease liberally with grease" so that the pads slide nicely in our New England winter hell on cars.

I usually just open the lid of the reservoir and push the pistons back using a cheap tool for the job. Works well enough and without the need for towels.

As for wire brush and scraping I'm all with you. But then I use just a small amount of grease since the grease will also attract dirt which could cause it to seize just as much as with no grease.

Post by **prwood** » 27 Nov 2017, 08:43

FWIW here's what my Toyota pad kit looked like:

And my Subaru pad kit:

cf. Volvo:

Post by **prwood** » 27 Nov 2017, 08:53

Also, for the life of me, I could not remove the retaining spring, or should I say I wasn't comfortable with the amount of force it felt like would be necessary to lever it out of the holes. I ended up bending the ears of the spring backwards just enough to release the caliper, then bent it back to reinstall.

Post by **oragex** » 27 Nov 2017, 08:58

Not sure as well why that bracket has to be secured to the cylinder.

But while here, I have a rant about the brakes design in these P2. You notice in the Toyota kit, there are a bunch of stainles steel shims that go between the pads and the caliper. Volvo cheaped out (or is it Ford actually) and skipped these shims: in Volvo the pads touch directly to the caliper bracket and the metal at the contact point wears and gets grooved which prevents the pads from sliding properly when the brakes are applied.

I work the retaining spring with long nose pliers.

Post by **abscate** » 27 Nov 2017, 09:53

prwood wrote: 27 Nov 2017, 08:53 Also, for the life of me, I could not remove the retaining spring, or should I say I wasn't comfortable with the amount of force it felt like would be necessary to lever it out of the holes. I ended up bending the ears of the spring backwards just enough to release the caliper, then bent it back to reinstall.

Its nice springy steel and you can pry it out of the holes with a large screwdriver. I didn't even realize you can remove the caliper with the spring in place!! #learnedsomethingnewtoday

Post by **Rattnalle** » 27 Nov 2017, 13:12

prwood wrote: 27 Nov 2017, 08:53 Also, for the life of me, I could not remove the retaining spring, or should I say I wasn't comfortable with the amount of force it felt like would be necessary to lever it out of the holes. I ended up bending the ears of the spring backwards just enough to release the caliper, then bent it back to reinstall.

I just stick a flathead under the spring next to the hole in the caliper and bend until it snaps out. Barely any force required.

oragex wrote: 27 Nov 2017, 08:58 Not sure as well why that bracket has to be secured to the cylinder.

But while here, I have a rant about the brakes design in these P2. You notice in the Toyota kit, there are a bunch of stainles steel shims that go between the pads and the caliper. Volvo cheaped out (or is it Ford actually) and skipped these shims: in Volvo the pads touch directly to the caliper bracket and the metal at the contact point wears and gets grooved which prevents the pads from sliding properly when the brakes are applied.

I work the retaining spring with long nose pliers.

Neither the 7-series nor the 8-series cars that I've owned have had clips like that. They've worked well enough well past 300 k km on wet, cold and salty swedish roads.

Well, one of the 7-series cars had a rear caliper stick but it turned out the brake fluid was a thick rust coloured goo.

Post by **prwood** » 27 Nov 2017, 14:09

abscate wrote: 27 Nov 2017, 09:53
prwood wrote: 27 Nov 2017, 08:53 Also, for the life of me, I could not remove the retaining spring, or should I say I wasn't comfortable with the amount of force it felt like would be necessary to lever it out of the holes. I ended up bending the ears of the spring backwards just enough to release the caliper, then bent it back to reinstall.
Its nice springy steel and you can pry it out of the holes with a large screwdriver. I didn't even realize you can remove the caliper with the spring in place!! #learnedsomethingnewtoday

Well... you *can* remove it with the spring in place, but I'm pretty sure you're not *supposed* to because of the risk of deforming the spring. I did initially attempt prying the spring out of the hole using a long screwdriver, but the amount of force I was applying was just starting to bend the outer part of the clip *up*, rather than lifting the end of the clip *out*... so I switched to plan B, which was pulling the spring ears out from under the caliper so that they would clear it. Maybe the spring is rusted into the hole and could use some PB Blaster to get it loose.