Quote:
Originally Posted by spark3542
The point, and therefore value, of a forum is to help in an "unknown" area to identify what's important and what isn't.
Sway bars are not important. Don't take that out of context. You want to have sway bars on your car, it makes a significant difference in handling. But you don't need them to drive. To repair them, you can use a piece of wood and two carriage bolts and it performs just as well as factory. That's what I mean by not important. Don't dwell on whether you made the right sway bar link decision.
|
OK, thanks for telling me... I did not know that until now. I thought they were really important things, actually I came to believe that they might be responsible for that noise I was experiencing, and the strange wear pattern in my brake pads. You see, I'm a starting DIYer, and nobody told me this before. How should I have known?
Quote:
|
Brakes are important. Unless you have a clean, well lit, and properly tooled environment, I wouldn't risk rebuilding a caliper myself. Buying a rebuilt is just too logical. Doing something poorly during the caliper rebuild can have much worse effects than putting the sway bar link in wrong.
|
OK, I am with you all the way.
Quote:
|
"rotor tilted" is confusing to me. Unless the whole bearing assembly is tilted with reference to the backing plate, then your wheel would wobble driving down the road. If wear is uneven on the rotor or the pads, then I would replace the rotors, pads, and calipers and be done with it. As someone previously stated, worn parking brake shoes are no big deal, because they are not designed to do any functional braking, just keeping the car still while parked.
|
Let me explain: I noticed the same exact wear pattern on both RL and RR brake pads. For instance, I don't remember exactly off my mind now, but something like this: RR = inside one worn out prevalently on the lower side, external one worn out mostly on the upper side; RL = inside one worn out prevalently on the upper side, external one worn out mostly on the lower side. What can cause this? - I thought to myself - and it hit me that it could be rotors tilted somehow to one side... I didn't say it was so, but asked "could it be so?" I don't think the wheels wobbled driving down the road... The wear is uneven in the pads, and also the rear rotors' edges seem dangerously close to the frames in which they are set at both the upper and bottom areas. What do you make of this? What could be causing it on both rotors/calipers/pads, the same pattern on both sides of the vehicle... this is what I am trying to understand before going out and start buying stuff which might not be what I need to fix the problem at hand...
Quote:
|
You should be able to rotate the rotor by hand (with parking brake released), but it will take some work. It won't spin without resistance. This is normal. If both tires are in the air, it should rotate the opposite tire in the opposite direction. If the transmission is in neutral, it may instead spin the driveshaft. If it takes "tools" or unusual force to rotate a rotor, then something is wrong. If there's is significant metal-on-metal sound, then something is wrong.
|
I am able to rotate the wheels (I tried only with tires installed) in both directions, and there is much more friction involved in the rear ones than the front wheels. The rear ones don't spin freely, but they rotate with not too much of an effort on my part. I did not check what happened to the opposite tire when rotating the one at my side (how could I, being by myself?) I tried only with the transmission in neutral. Yes, there is a metal-on-metal sound, on both sides but more on the right wheel, and I am trying to identify what that may be...
Quote:
|
Find the root cause, but don't overthink the problem. It usually is fairly simple, and it's not often that two things break at the same time. Keep that in mind as you troubleshoot.
|
You see, you have expressed my thinking exactly... if it were calipers, how could two calipers start acting out at the same time... That wear pattern also on both sides, what does it tell us, fairly simply? Please advise what I need to troubleshoot at this point?
I mean, di I go ahead and change everything (rotors, calipers, pads)? Or start with the pads and see how that goes? How about that strange pad wear pattern?
Thank you so much,
Rino