Brake Squeal

[SteveK]

Ever since I did a track day at Llandow I've had very bad brake squeal on my Xtreme. I initially suspected glazed pads, after exchanging emails with Wilwood. I de-glazed the pad faces, which helped a little, so on the suggestion of Wilwood I upgraded the pads to a higher spec material, going for EBC Green Stuff.

I fitted them Sunday afternoon and went out this morning to bed them in, but the squeal is still there. When breaking harder the squeal appears to die down or disappear completely, but at this stage I'm not braking too hard as the pads are still bedding in.

This afternoon I have taken the pads out and fitted the stick on shims, which are supposed to reduce brake noise, without success. I have also re-bent the anti-rattle springs, so they are putting more pressure on the pads.

I have also taken the rear drums off and inspected them, but all looks OK there.

What else could be causing the squeal, as it's embarrassing to drive.

Regards,
Steve

[Nash]

No doubt Ash will be along in a while to give you chapter and verse on this Steve as he has had the same problem since fitting the Willwoods earlier this year.

He's been through several different pad types and shims etc. It seems to be an issue with Sierra hubs so I don't know if you have them or not but it would certainly be worth speaking with Ash.

Neil

[Nogoingback]

Have you tried taking the leading edge off of the pad.
As Neil said try squeaking too Ash.

[Ben_Copeland]

Was a thread on locostbuilders about this a while ago. It's the pads vs the lightweightness means it's not heating the pad up enough or something.

Are you using solid or vented discs? There's a lot of squealing cars with wilwoods

[AshG]

wilwood powerlites mounted to a sierra hub by any chance? Had the same issue

run for 700miles Mintex 1144 pads = worst squeal
run for 1000miles wilwood smart pads 10 = squeal
yellow stuff = bad squeal for first 500 miles then one day nothing other than the odd little squeek occasionally. done another 250miles since they stoped making a noise and they seem fine.

of all the pads mintex had the best initial bite and worked very very well but the noise did my head in. the smart pads felt like i had blocks of wood instead of pads and the yellow stuff dont have as much initial bite as the mintex but they work darn well when pushing on.

i tried stick on carbon shims ali and steel shims tried with and without the wilwood springy things on, even tried packing under them with various materials. none stoped the noise. on the mintex i tried chamfering the edges slotting the middle nothing worked.

i think the floor is either in the design of the mounting bracket or not having a pressure retaining spring from the locking pin onto the top of the pads. the wilwood mount sits the calliper at 3oclock. if you look a the hispecs their mounting bracket sits the calliper at more like 2oclock they also have a different locking pin system.

for me yellow stuff pads seem to have stoped it fingers crossed watch this space.

if you need to know how loud it was just ask nash it was hurting his ears 3 cars in front on the way back from rye

before the yellow stuff's i was very close to refitting the sierra callipers, im glad i didnt.

[SteveK]

Thanks for the replies. I am in contact with Wilwood at the moment too, so will see what they say. So far I've only done ~100 miles with the green stuff pads, so will see if this gets better as they bed in further. I will look further into what else can be done to lock the pads in position and I think you might be right about the pins being the reason for the squeal. I'll just have to put up with the worried looks from other drivers for now every time I touch the brake pedal.

Regards,
Steve

[dray13dad]

Have you tried and deglacied the disc suface yet hit it with a nice piece of 40 grit production paper,do really scuff up the suface.if that works would suggest that you cut a nice groove in in the centre of the pad about 2-3mm wide for near the depth of the lining (groove should be horizonal and not vertigal).
this will help to trap the dust causing the noise.