stoptech street pads too thick?

title says it all. brand new stop tech street pads ordered by car model from KNS brakes. passenger side went in fine. drivers side is another story.

 

first try, caliper couldnt close down over the pads at all as the bolt hole tab was hitting the mounting bracket (lower bolt). the pistons are retracted fully and not touching the in board pad, so the issue would appear to be the thickness of the outboard pad. and yes, it is fully flush against the rotor.

 

i then slightly sanded the out board pad as well as removed the shim and with a little persuasion got the caliper on. test drive wound up with a dragging pad and burning hot wheel.

 

took everything back apart and swapped inner to outer to see if anything changed, and again caliper wont close, although its closer (i probably should have tried removing the shim again).

 

wound up just putting the stock pads back on the drivers side until i can figure this out.

 

1) should the metal tab be up or down on the outboard pad? (ive now tried both)

 

2) has anyone had this happen before?

 

3) any thoughts/input? im stumped.

mine fit tight, but were fine. I believe it was the passenger front, but after one drive all was normal.

do you have the metal clips up or down? are you running the mtal shims/backing plates that came on the pads?

I pull the shims off, the metal tabs slide into the matching groove in the caliper. If the metal pins get in the way, you can rip them off. I've had to one pin off to get race pads to fit. YMMV

Reviving an old thread.

I just completed a brake job (new pads and rotors, front and rear). I used Centric blanks (not cryos) and StopTech Sport pads (the old Street Performance pads). P/Ns for rotors were 120.47024 (front) and 120.47025 (rear). P/Ns for pads were 309.10780 (front) and 309.0770 (rear). Both front setups were very tight, but I was able to slip the caliper and pads over the rotor. However, I didn't need to hold the front wheels to torque the lug nuts when putting the wheels on. I went for a drive (only about a mile or two) with easy braking to start and just two 30-0mph stops. During the drive, the car would want to stop itself just by letting go of the gas pedal. Certainly the brakes were dragging. When I got home, I could smell the brakes and the front wheels were pretty hot to the touch. Is this normal for these pads? Did I get pads from a bad lot? I don't think it's the piston or the caliper as I wasn't having issues prior, but will try to do some investigation soon.

A set of micrometers would at least tell you if all the pads/rotors were equal in thickness. Sucks for sure.

It wasn't the pads. It was seized lower caliper bracket guide pins on both L and R. Interesting and amazingly unlucky that they had seized where new pads would still fit over the new rotors but resulted in dragging pads. Always check the caliper motion and make sure your rotors can spin pretty freely. Idiotic mistake on my part.

 

 

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It wasn't the pads. It was seized lower caliper bracket guide pins on both L and R. Interesting and amazingly unlucky that they had seized where new pads would still fit over the new rotors but resulted in dragging pads. Always check the caliper motion and make sure your rotors can spin pretty freely. Idiotic mistake on my part.

 

 

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Pretty much what a lot of us know. Yearly when I paint the calipers. I pull the slide pins and grease them. Make sure you put the boots back on so they seal the pins...(keeps water out) or you too will be buying new brackets.

IMO when you do a brake job you have to do it right, pull everything apart, inspect and re-lube the pins. Personally I also flush out the old brake fluid too. This stuff does not improve with age. It sounds like a lot of work but given it takes me over 100,000km (60,000 miles for my US cousins) to grind through a set it isn't that bad really.