Saxo Front Brake Pad Pins

14th March 2015, 23:18

Hi all. New to the forum. Nice to meet you all. I'm Roy. Been DIY mechanicing for about 15 years so know my way pretty well around a car and a toolbox.

Despite that, I'm stuck! Well, in fact, my mrs new car's brakes are.

Its a crappy little 2002 Saxo 1.1 she got for £100, needless to say, needed a bit of work. So anyway, about £400 into it on parts to get it through the MOT and get it fully serviced so nothing needs doing majorly for years.

Problem now, after all I've done which includes new front discs and pads, I have a problem with the front passenger brake.

The pads appear to be binding at one stage every turn of the wheel. After driving a while, lightly touching the brake makes it kind of clunk on each turn of the wheel, hard braking it is not noticeable, and standard driving it also isn't.
When I take the caliper off, the wheel spins freely. Caliper and pads back in and it begins to feel rough at one stage every turn again.
I've replaced the caliper as I thought the piston might be binding, and the new one is a recon unit from GSF. Also replaced the flexi hose. The chances of a new one having the exact same fault as the old one are pretty frickin slim I'm sure you'll agree.

Now the old pads that came out had worn uneven, this side of the car had a lot more wear than the other side. Plus, the pads on this side were also worn uneven, one was worn much further down, and also, worn down slanted. Indicating, this problem was probably there before I started tinkering. (I only drove it up and down the street so can't remember if this problem was there before or not).

One thing to note, I did fit the slide retainer for the pads in the incorrect location. When I took it out, it came out from the top of the caliper. But no matter how much me and my old man tried, we could not get it back in at the top. In the bottom it went in much easier.
Whilst this may of course be the cause, it doesn't seem to be causing any problem on the drivers side and we've put that in the same way.
Does it matter having these pins where I've put them? Any tips to get them in the top if it does?

Brakes also still feel spongy despite pressure bleeding the system. I've read about play in the pedal though so gonna try tightening that up tomorrow to hopefully eliminate that.

Oh yeah, last thing, this cyclic clunk seems to get worse the more it is driven (possibly the more the brakes are applied and maybe get slightly tighter to the disc each time).
A few days ago, I honestly thought the wheel was gonna fall apart the clunk was so pronounced. When I take it apart and reset everything, it appears to go away for a bit. I drove it home tonight and couldn't really notice it.

Only things I can think, mainly on what I've already ruled out. Possibly a master cylinder fault, servo fault or hub/caliper mounts being bent (cast iron? really?).

Any ideas guys? Would really appreciate the help. MOT ran out today and mrs is harping on at me to get her motor fixed. Bloody woman shouldn't have bought a £100 car without consulting me first then, lol

15th March 2015, 03:33

Are the discs on hubs correctly? clean the hubs with wire-brush and tighten the retaining screws.

Sliders should go at top, look at images on this forum, ebay etc to see if you've got the pads in correctly.

15th March 2015, 06:44

sounds like incorrectly fitted offset pads.

15th March 2015, 08:47

Thanks for the input guys. Discs definitely fitted correctly. And no dirt on hub.

The pads are my only suspect area but given it was happening before plus the other side isn't doing the same. I'm leaning towards the root cause being something else at the moment.

Has nobody else ever struggled to get these pins in. I tried for two days and honestly, it would not go in. I'm sure the pads must be machined ever so slightly differently cause we are talking mm's

15th March 2015, 08:54

pictures!

15th March 2015, 10:17

No probs. Mr Mrs will be home from work at 4. I'll go whip the wheel off then and get some pics of how I've put it, then I'll attempt one last time to get the pin at the top

15th March 2015, 10:24

no, do it now!

wait, you let your missus drive it?!

15th March 2015, 12:39

Lol. I'm watching the kids so can't get too involved. Gonna do it in a minute though.
And yeah she drives it lol, it's her car, she's welcome to it. I personally have a seat Leon,much prefer that to her paxo :-)

15th March 2015, 13:34

so you let her drive with faulty brakes....

15th March 2015, 16:18

LOL, don't be silly.
She was driving me Leon.

Thats exactly the point. I won't let her drive it with faulty brakes and thats why shes getting annoyed about it. She just wants her car now, she bought it about 3 weeks ago and due to money we've had to get the parts slowly to get everything sorted mechanically so its sound and ready for an MOT which was due yesterday. I had barely drove it and was confident with all I'd done on it that yesterdays MOT was gonna be plain sailing, then after driving it a little in the days going up to the MOT, I began to notice the issue. She drove it one day after I'd changed the caliper as I thought it was fixed. She didn't mention any problem, but next day I noticed it again. I'm a decent bloke don't worry, lol. We have kids, so of course, no chance I'd let me kids knowingly get into a car with iffy brakes.

Right, I've got some pics, just need to figure out how to upload.

15th March 2015, 16:27

This is how I have put the brakes back together, before re-trying to put it right.

From another angle

Can't get it any closer than this

Before I ground the pad

This is after I ground the part of the pad down that appears to be causing the issue. Couldn't grind it down much as don't have suitable tools.

Holding the pad tight

Holding the pad and whacking

Where the pad appears to be not quite machined right, the part of the caliper it hits.

Reinstalled wrong again, this time, put the spring at the bottom to see if this was assisting in the issue, nah, still the same.

15th March 2015, 16:35

I'm quite convinced that these are the wrong pads or discs here, I can see no other logical reason at all that this won't work. Or the pads are just machined badly.

For what its worth though.
1) The old pads also will not fit in the correct way anymore.
2) I haven't tried the new pads with the OLD discs so I'm thinking this might be disc thickness at the moment.
3) Disregarding the incorrect pad fitment for one second, this car 100% had an issue before I even touched it, at that stage, the retaining pin was in correctly, and the discs and pads were in so it must have all fit some how.
The pads were worn uneven on that particular wheel, all this had me leaning to the caliper. The issue I'm now getting appears to be binding in a particular spot which over time will cause, yep, uneven pad wear. Ere go, I think this is the exact same problem it had before I touched anything, and I've changed, discs, pads, caliper and flexi brake hose. All other brakes feel fine, so chances of the master being stuffed are pretty slim?

Only final option I can think of that would have been there before and after that I haven't looked at is....Bent hub! Its all I can think could cause it.

Although that still doesn't address why I now can't get these new pads on properly. Any advice is greatly appreciated cause I'm at the end of my tether with this thing. Its funny, I've always been confident as feck with brakes, they've always been a thing I don't even think about, they take ten minutes, never once had a problem. Cambelt I'm scared shitless of, always end up having to have two or more attempts at getting the belt back on correct.

On this car, changing the cambelt went sweet as a nut, taking the top off the engine to do valve clearances, no worries, taking the bottom off the engine to do the sump gasket, no bother. Brakes....Feckin brakes....The very first job I ever learnt to do on a car about 15 years ago...brakes are messing me up here, this car is ridiculous! Bloody French cars!

15th March 2015, 18:47

looks like you need to swap the pads over, or possibly that the pad carrier is on the wrong side.

15th March 2015, 18:53

They look like rear vts brake set up

15th March 2015, 18:55

Bendix set up, they're a bit poop.

15th March 2015, 18:57

Yeah I've never seen them on the front of any Saxo before!

15th March 2015, 19:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Milney8989

Yeah I've never seen them on the front of any Saxo before!

All 4 stud base specs rock them

Are the inboard and outboard pads different?

Also, the pins ahould look like this

15th March 2015, 19:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by chinkostu

All 4 stud base specs rock them

Are the inboard and outboard pads different?

Also, the pins ahould look like this

Ahhhh I see I've never had a basic one! My mum had a 1.1 desire once and had vented discs in front that's why I was confused

15th March 2015, 19:24

Thanks for the response guys.
Tis indeed the base model.

I've come to the conclusion, the binding has to be the master cylinder, I've changed everything else it can be and the drivers wheel ain't binding so I'm confident the fitment of the pads actually makes no difference certainly not enough to bind the brakes.

The fact that the pads won't fit the right way I think has to be a simple case of badly machined pads, need another set as they simply don't fit how they should, although that doesn't explain why I couldn't get the originals back in. Food damn it lol.

99% sure the master is broke though from the binding, also the brakes in general feel very spongy and I've pressure bled them, in fact I fully replaced the fluid. So the master must have problems, anyone in agreement? Hope so cause fed up of throwing money at this POS

15th March 2015, 19:28

Yeah sounds about wright! I had a set of 266 brakes on my Saxo before and they sort of done the same thing apart from mine was more an annoying squeak that happened on every other turn, anyway it turned out to be the disc had a slight buckle in it which was causing the problem!!!!! Just an idea

16th March 2015, 00:37

Ya know this is really bugging me. I'm not satisfied with my own response.
Why on earth could I get the pad retaining pins out, but with the new disc on, no matter what I try, I can't get it back in, even using the OLD pads and an old or new retaining pin.

Only answer I can come up with is disc thickness causing the pad to sit a little too far back in the caliper where the clearance just isn't there.
Next chance I get, I'm gonna compare the thickness of the old disc.

It still doesn't answer the question about the brakes binding, that still may be master cylinder. But the more I think here, the more I think I must be missing something. I did notice that the old pads looked like they had been ground down a little in a spot, so I'm wondering if the last person that did the job, had the same troubles.
I'm also wondering, are these troubles the actual cause of the binding brake. As in, if the pads never fit quite right and were too tight, they may not have actually moved as they should along the pad retaining pin, hence putting more braking force on one side as it was stuck on the retaining pin.

Anyone think this theory could be anything?

Although that does then get me to ask the question. Why the feck don't these parts fit out the factory? I've had a reconditioned caliper, brand new disc and pads and retaining pin. Why the hell should they need grinding? Although, they aren't main dealer parts, they are from GSF, brembo discs and can't remember the name of the pads but I've never once had a bad fitting part from a factors before. Is this really the problem? And then that leads to the question, why haven't I found info about this all over the internet. It seems I'm the only person to ever come across this.

16th March 2015, 01:04

EDIT
Scratch that.
I KNOW WHY THE RETAINING PIN DONT FIT!!!

I've just watched a youtube video of the pad replacement procedure and looked back at my pictures extremely carefully. We have a difference.
My pads are both facing the same direction, they should not be! One on the inside needs to have the notch side facing down, one on the outside, notch side facing up.
Gonna smash that in tomorrow no problem now.

So just gonna be left with the binding, master cylinder here I come

16th March 2015, 06:44

thsts what I said...

16th March 2015, 12:49

Thanks man. You hit the nail on head. I'll report back if the binding is still apparent

20th March 2015, 20:32

Hi again guys, I'm back. Right, brakes are now correctly fitted. In fact it passed an mot today so it's good.
However, the binding is still there.

Now that the pads are definitely fitted properly, I'm concerned it isn't the master cylinder as I thought. If it was the master, why would I get a stiff part of the full turn circle of the wheel. The stiff part is always the pads gripping the disc, if I take the pads off, it disappears.
If it was the master, surely it would be the entire piston not releasing and so the brake would just end up stuck on.

Anyone got any ideas? To me it still strikes of caliper, but it's a new one, no way does the new one and my old one have the exact same fault manifested in the same way, something else is causing this, but I'm buggered if I know what. Really don't wanna just throw parts at it, I want to know what's causing it before I replace it this time.

Thanks for your help

21st March 2015, 09:14

wheel bearing, or disc not seated propperly.