CoolRex and I put on a set of '06 front brakes on my '02 bugeye a couple of weekends ago. We were working after dark when we were assembling the calipers so I'm wondering if we have done something wrong. I had occasion to have the car up to some pretty high speeds and was having a howling happen for some reason from my right front wheel. The brakes are the only thing that has changed. I was wondering if someone had an 06 manual with an exploded view of the parts and the order that they need to be put in. It looks like one of the pads has a squealer setup, a roughly M-shaped piece of metal that is riveted to the bottom of the pad. I have one showing on the outside of the wheel that was howling... but on my passenger side outside there isn't one. I'm wondering if we got the pad assembly right. I haven't had the chance to get to the inside pads to check them yet. I'm wondering if the high speed air pressure had put them into the rotor to cause the howling noise I heard last night. Thanks in advance... Derek
I think one of the pads had a metal clip like thingy on them. It's hard to judge by looking through the rim but on of the shims may have slid down and I put them on the wrong side. I've never worked with the Subaru 4 pots and my Brembos came already assembled. So yeah an exploded chart would work great....the diagram that came with the calipers was about the size of a business card and you couldn't read jack $hit on it.
I did too Milo... which is why we really didn't think much of it when we were assembling them. You can see the thing I'm talking about in this pic... sorry it's a cameraphone pic so the quality isn't that high but you can see one side of it... it's the metal strip you see below the caliper. It's riveted on the bottom of the pad so it looks like it was supposed to be there. My first thought was that one of the shims wasn't on correctly and had fallen. It definately looks like a squealer setup... and I'm suprised that we didn't pick up on it before... but if it's supposed to be on the inside or if we accidentally put both squealers on one side of the car. I need to know where it's supposed to sit... I'm thinking that the other squealer would be on the other side, and in the dark we missed the fact that there was one of each... Delette assembled one side and I assembled the other so we could've totally missed that the pads were different as we were putting them on. Will??? You seem to have all the answers... can you let me know so when I pull them apart tonight I get them back on right?
It was very noisy at 100mph plus... It was like a resonent howl... but quietened down when my speed dropped below 100... The only two other possiblities was either severe road noise because the tire's under-inflated, or the wheel bearing is going. I've not noticed the howl before we put the brakes on, and this was the first time I was up to triple digit speeds since we've done them. I'm thinking that the air pressure might be pushing the squealers into the rotor... and there's a slight mark on the rotor that could be explained by that.
You can't leave them off. Look at the pic......they are part of the pad itself. Also you have a STi so they are different.
Those are the OEM 4 pot WRX brakes from the '06-07 WRX using the stock OEM pads. We only had the little piece of paper that came with the pads to use as a guideline and that was in Japanese with very small diagrams. It was darkwhen we started assembling them, so it's possible that we missed the squealers... the passenger side pad visible does not have a squealer on it, and doesn't have the rivets in it, so I can safely assume that all the pads didn't have the squealer. I assembled the passenger side and Delette assembled the drivers side, so it could be that we put both of the pads with squealers on the driver's side, and both of the pads without on the passenger's side. I don't remember there being a difference between the two pads, and neither does Delette so we might have just assumed that they were right because both pads looked the same when we assembled them.
At lunch I tested the tire pressure... it was at 34PSi warm which is where I normally run my tires, so low tire pressure causing excessive noise has been eliminated as a source of the howl.
A little less helpful, but might get me pointed in the right direction if someone has an 06 WRX with the unmodified stock braking system on their car, if they could go out and look to see if the squealers are visible on the outside of the caliper that would probably tell me that the squealers need to be on the inside or the outside. Right now any help would be appreciated.
i remember when i had my '06 wrx brakes installed on my '02 wrx SOG needed the springs. for some reason they weren't included in the install kit with the new brakes. so they had to jack some off a car off the lot. so it might be that the pads aren't separating back out. maybe they are just staying closed on the rotors, or not opening far enough.
Derek took the rims off last night and found something interesting. 3 pads a all plain. Only one pad which is the one in the picture had the low brake pad indicator (squealer) on it. There should be two pads with this.
Not always. Most newer pad sets from SUBARU only have 1 pad out of 4 with the warning on it. Except Brembo. Most older pad sets have 2/4 with the warning. As long as all the clips and pins are in...your problem is elsewhere. I have noticed on stock cars that brake noises are normal at high speeds. Except Brembo.
Thanks for the input Will... I pulled out the driver's side pads last night and checked them, so if they're only setting up one with a wear indicator then I'm cool... but the pads were loose enough against the caliper to get them out and get them back in with a little bit of colorful language. I did the "traditional" test for wheel bearing play last night, (grab the wheel in the 6 and 12 o'clock positions and shake) none detectable, though there's enough play in my steering even when it's locked. If all it is high speed brake noise, I guess I'll just have to get used to it. Just to be on the safe side... I'm going to look into the wheel bearing issue a little more and see what I need to check into and other warning signs... Thanks for everyone's help. Derek
take a pic w/out the wheel on showing the 'top' of the caliper...aka the side that you see the pads/clips/pins. Bottom side being what faces the center of the rotor/hub.
I'll pop the wheel off tonight and take a pic... I think we got everthing right with the large side of the shim heading in the direction of travel, and I'm using the "clip" on the top pin. The setup is the same as the 300ZX brakes I used to have on my 240SX so I'm pretty familiar with the setup. I did pop the pads out last night on the driver's side and put the wear indicator pad on the inside, and I swapped the shims around so they'd be running the right way. We put the vaned shim on first with the copper colored grease, then put the solid shim on with the longer side in the direction of travel, and then the clip on the forward pin. The pins are in and held in place by the spring... and then we're running the "rattle clip" with the curved side down. Not getting any noise out of it except at high speed, they're actually much quieter than on my 240 which had Project Mu pads on it.