Brake Pads and spring clips, were they always this annoying?

[Curious Hound]

It's all y'all's fault. I haven't even gotten to the pads yet and this job has gone south. Went to clean and relube the bearings and found one of the outer races loose in the rotor. Tried a race from a new bearing. Same thing. It just drops in and slides out by hand. It should be snug so it doesn't spin in the rotor.

And when did rotors get so expensive? I thought they used to be $25-$30. Now $75 and higher. Sheesh! Anyway. Going to pick up 2 new rotors from NAPA in a few minutes.

 

[Ranger850]

It's all y'all's fault. I haven't even gotten to the pads yet and this job has gone south. Went to clean and relube the bearings and found one of the outer races loose in the rotor. Tried a race from a new bearing. Same thing. It just drops in and slides out by hand. It should be snug so it doesn't spin in the rotor.

And when did rotors get so expensive? I thought they used to be $25-$30. Now $75 and higher. Sheesh! Anyway. Going to pick up 2 new rotors from NAPA in a few minutes.

Rotors got expensive when the price to have them turned krept up to the price of new rotors.
I called a shop to have some rotors, for my 2019 Santa Fe fronts, to be turned, they wanted $30 a rotor, 2 new ones from Amazon was $70, free shipping with Prime. Done deal.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

I always tickle the slots with a cutoff wheel.

 

[Curious Hound]

I could probably dimple the ID of the rotor and apply some green Loctite. But I try to reserve those ideas as "emergency temporary field repairs just to get home".

 

[sgtsandman]

Tried a race from a new bearing. Same thing. It just drops in and slides out by hand. It should be snug so it doesn't spin in the rotor.

There is a joke or two there but this isn't the tailgate...

 

[pentode]

Howdy folks,

I just finished doing my 3rd set of pads and rotors for the year, and for the 3rd time this year, and each time I've had to go absolutely insane grinding down the ears of every single pad I've replaced to just make them fit.

At first I thought I was doing something wrong, maybe I wasn't properly fitting the spring clips, but even after laboriously cleaning the caliper bracket, forming spring clips to the best of my ability, and getting really specific with lubricants, I've still had to spend a ton of time fiddling with these god damn ears to get them to slip into the caliper brackets, and not bind. This is across a pretty wide variety of brands too, from Canadian Tire's Pro OE Series, Napa, even Power Stop!

I feel like I used to just replace the spring clip, and the things would just neatly slide in no questions asked or lube necessary. Now I feel like I'm custom fitting each pad to each car every single time I do a pad change.

Am I crazy? Or do you guys find yourself with a rasp grinding away at the ears of your brake pads too?

You’re not crazy. I’ve seen this on multiple vehicles including the Ranger. I’ve actually had both issues mentioned above - the slots for the spring clips get full of rust and need to be ground back, and even then the new pads almost always have way too much powder coating or paint or whatever they use on them so they still don’t fit without a clean up.
As others have said, parts suck now.

 

[pentode]

It's all y'all's fault. I haven't even gotten to the pads yet and this job has gone south. Went to clean and relube the bearings and found one of the outer races loose in the rotor. Tried a race from a new bearing. Same thing. It just drops in and slides out by hand. It should be snug so it doesn't spin in the rotor.

And when did rotors get so expensive? I thought they used to be $25-$30. Now $75 and higher. Sheesh! Anyway. Going to pick up 2 new rotors from NAPA in a few minutes.

I feel your pain. On my old Datsun the rotors actually bolt on to the hubs. At some point in its past I guess it seized a bearing and spun the race, actually machined out the hub. Which is unobtanium.

 

[Curious Hound]

So, FYI. In 3rd gen with Dana35 front axle, not sure if there are others, there are 2 different 4x4 rotors depending on gear ratio. 3.45 gear ratio gets a larger diameter rotor with bigger bearings. Other gear ratios get an 11" rotor with smaller bearings. None of the parts websites I looked at today defined what the differences were. My original gear ratio was 3.73.

So, when I got to NAPA to pick up my rotors, they were wrong. Luckily, I had taken an old one with me so I could verify measurements. When the employee brought up the info on her store computer, it had the info about the gear ratio. She brought the others out and I matched them to my old rotor. And I was able to get the right parts in one trip.well, I hope they're right. I just got home and haven't installed them yet.

Just guessing, but I bet the 3.45 gear ratio was in trucks with 4.0l engine and auto trans. They must be real speed demons to require bigger brake rotors.

 

[901wd#2]

Last brake job I did was not simple as it should be, just an as requested pad slap on a 2012 tundra. Worst part is the pads could’ve gone 2 more years at the rate he’s using them. People always want me to change parts that don’t need changed.

Fancy four piston fixed calipers sounds cool till it’s driven in the rust belt and never washed. Cutting breaking and driving out the bits of those pad retaining pins was not fun. Lots of tapping while pulling on the old pads to remove them, then I had to get creative with a pry bar to set the pistons back. Scraped out the pad channel, greased it up and sent it home.

Most people can make a brake pad, backing plate, smaller. Fewer could make it bigger.

 

[MaicoDoug]

The anti rattle clip was the culprit to how & why those shallow groves showed up inside the inner diameter of my wheels. Got hit by the "tire dude" when re-installing the wheel I guess. Just tap them back down with a small ball peen hammer. I do agree with Pentode regarding the quality of spare parts, and products in general, quality sucks these days across the board. New vehicles need a laptop to even change a cabin filter. That's why I like the old stuff and always will! My 2013 F150 is the best right now (wife's truck) and she's all of 4'11". on 33x 12.5 17" Metholds- leveled.

 

[mikkelstuff]

Yes, run into this more than once. The latest was with new NAPA calipers and Wagner pads for my '02 Ranger. Had to grind down slightly the back, metal, side of the pads just enough for the wheels to spin by hand.