Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

My girlfriend is refusing to ride in the GTR with me because she says that the brake squeel is driving her nuts and is embarrasing. So now i have to figure out whats wrong. 

I notice that when the brakes are cold, there are no squeels. However after 5-10 minutes of driving, the squeel starts. And its always when i'm coming to a stop at a intersection. It dosent matter if i brake lightly, or apply the brakes very hard, it will 100% squeel. And i'm talking about a screeching loud sound that every car next to me will turn their heads to look. 

Something else i noticed the other morning when the brakes were cold, when i applied the brake, the car would pull to the right a little bit. Why would it do that? Would the left side or the right side be the culprit?

 

I thought the squealing was meant to come from the passenger seat, not the brakes.

Are you using factory brakes? And do you know what pads and rotors?

More aggressive pads and rotors (eg race ones) are more likely to squeal, but it always comes down to being caused by a tiny vibration when the brakes are being used.

You need to pull everything apart, including taking the disc off the hub. Make sure the hub surface that the disc sits on is flat and clean (ie no rust flakes etc). Clean the disc with brake cleaner, scuff the pad surface on some rough concrete to give it a new surface (they might be glazed), clean the rear of the pad and both sides of the anti-squeal shims thoroughly. Make sure the surface of the caliper piston that pushes on the pads is also clean.

Then reassemble everything, and if you are still concerned you can buy anti squeal compounds to put between the back of the pad, and each side of the anti squeal shims, although that shouldn't be required and can affect pedal feel.

For the pulling to the right, that suggests the pistons in your left caliper are sticking a little, you should be able to tell if the right pads and disc are wearing more than the left. Either way, a rebuild of the calipers might be due

  • Haha 1

If I had to guess, I'd say you are missing some/all of the factory brake shims. 

In addition to the above - when was the last time you bled the brakes? It could be as simple as your fluid has turned to jelly on left side causing them not to work. 

14 hours ago, kevboost7 said:

My girlfriend is refusing to ride in the GTR with me because she says that the brake squeel is driving her nuts and is embarrasing. So now i have to figure out whats wrong. 

I notice that when the brakes are cold, there are no squeels. However after 5-10 minutes of driving, the squeel starts. And its always when i'm coming to a stop at a intersection. It dosent matter if i brake lightly, or apply the brakes very hard, it will 100% squeel. And i'm talking about a screeching loud sound that every car next to me will turn their heads to look. 

Something else i noticed the other morning when the brakes were cold, when i applied the brake, the car would pull to the right a little bit. Why would it do that? Would the left side or the right side be the culprit?

 

Few things. You need to put grease in key areas as directed by the FSM, failure to do this will cause interesting brake noises. Less is more when it comes to this, getting grease on the friction material will cure your brake noise issues but otherwise ruin your day. You also want to have the appropriate shims to go with your pads. You also want to make sure your pads are a reasonably streetable compound. Anything designed for hard track use will sound like what you're describing. 

If the car is pulling when you apply the brakes you need to inspect and figure out why. Could be a caliper that isn't behaving properly, could be worn/contaminated pads, could be anything really.

You've had some decent suggestions above now, I'm just going to suggest the obvious.

Change girlfriend, problem solved. Other random unpredictable problems may present themselves. Your experience may vary...

  • Like 2
  • Haha 5
Quote

And its always when i'm coming to a stop at a intersection. It dosent matter if i brake lightly, or apply the brakes very hard, it will 100% squeel. And i'm talking about a screeching loud sound that every car next to me will turn their heads to look. 

Can I ask how you put up with this yourself? That sounds terrible and it would drive me nuts as well :)

1. Fix the brakes, simple. You and the GF are happy, and safe by the sounds of it.

Or just get a cheap daily for when rolling with the girl friend, and roll around with 5hit brakes on the street yourself. See point 1.

Some women folk tend to have some good points if you put the testosterone away and listen to them, yours sounds like she has her head on straight. It would be a shame if you bined a good GF because you don't like her comments about noisy, possibly dangerous brakes, on the street.

Meh, if it wasn't for the brains (read: common sense) of my Mrs when it comes to me doing dumb 5hit, I would be poor, or visiting the hospital alot more than I do at best, or dead at worst.

I tend to have the "just send it mentally" whilst fun, sometimes the consequences are not.

i had a good laugh at all the girlfriend jokes 🤣 but shes gonna stay lol so im fixing the brakes. Truthfully, the squealing brakes bothered me but not enough for me to do something about it. So in a way, shes making my project car better 😆

Anyways, i took off the wheels last night and i think i found the culprit. There was no shims!! only the thin metal peice that came from the brake pads. I ordered a shim kit and its on its way. 

The brake pads i have are Hawk HPS something. on the last picture there was a thin metal plate on it, but i dont think it has the shim kit. 

Also, do those pads look glazed? 

And has anyone done a caliper rebuild? or should i consider going to a big brake kit?

IMG_4608.JPG

IMG_4609.JPG

IMG_4611.JPG

4 hours ago, kevboost7 said:

i had a good laugh at all the girlfriend jokes 🤣 but shes gonna stay lol so im fixing the brakes. Truthfully, the squealing brakes bothered me but not enough for me to do something about it. So in a way, shes making my project car better 😆

Anyways, i took off the wheels last night and i think i found the culprit. There was no shims!! only the thin metal peice that came from the brake pads. I ordered a shim kit and its on its way. 

The brake pads i have are Hawk HPS something. on the last picture there was a thin metal plate on it, but i dont think it has the shim kit. 

Also, do those pads look glazed? 

And has anyone done a caliper rebuild? or should i consider going to a big brake kit?

IMG_4608.JPG

IMG_4609.JPG

IMG_4611.JPG

Pretty sure you're missing some hardware: 

image.thumb.png.89b030154948a3c34ef3e1b3f5325659.png

Glazed pads should almost look like glass. Your picture isn't good enough to tell what's going on there. If there's a good amount of surface roughness and it's not shiny you should be fine. Inspect the caliper after cleaning it up and see if everything is behaving as intended, if you have doubts you can rebuild the calipers: https://www.z1motorsports.com/hardware/centric/nissan-300zx-z32-brake-caliper-rebuild-kits-p-3366.html

I reckon the pads look fine, but you can see that not having anti squeal shims might cause squealing.

Even while you are waiting for them, give everything a through cleaning brake cleaner, you should be able to quieten in up

I should add, if you dont have the spring that holds the pad retaining pins you run a risk of the pads falling out. At a minimum put r pins or even split pins through the hole on the retaining pins to make sure they dont back out

  • Like 1

Looking at the photo posted by OP, the pad retaining pins aren't going through the pads to begin with.

Those pins also look super gunked up. They need to come out and be cleaned on a wire wheel.

 

It does look like one pad is removed, and that may be why the pad retaining pins aren't through the pad on the other side.

3 minutes ago, r32-25t said:

Everything is there and installed correctly, the issue is the pads 

Did you mix up pictures Brett? The OPs photo is missing stuff, another photo was posted with all parts showing, but that person saying parts missing.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • Thanks for all the replies fellas. Gonna finish putting it back together and see how it handles the set up. If it starts pinging it’ll be parked.
    • Well, I can recommend the partial AV system translation CD I ordered from Car Audio Workshop in NZ. Whilst it didn't address the date issue, it has conveniently translated on-screen menu items into English, and now allows the GPS-received time to be offset in hours rather than minutes, so I can display Eastern Australian time accurately ( and bump it by another hour when daylight savings starts ).
    • Yuh, if it's 45°C outside, my car is driving in it.
    • I'd be curious to hear more. Otherwise, have you driven a modern x-trail? I wonder how it compares. Here in Australia they are/were popular for rentals and fleet vehicles. I have been in some and my impression was they are bad. But, this may have been very different in the 2000s at a good trim level. Twenty years is plenty of time to make the model worse. I do very much agree with the 2 silver cars in the garage approach. But, not driving because it's too hot would not leave a lot of time in the year for many Australians. I don't think you need to worry too much unless the car has actual issues with overheating. 
    • Back again. I returned to Japan in Jul/Aug to spend time with the car on my birthday and remind myself what all the sacrifice and compromise is for. It happened to line up with the monthly morning meet in Okutama, which I have been wanting to go to for a long time. It's a unique event at a unique spot with really rare, interesting, and quirky cars. It's where all the oldheads and OGs gather. The nighttime scene at DKF certainly has its place and should be experienced if you're into cars, but there's too much bad attention and negativity around it now. IMO the better time is Sunday morning at DKF or Okutama; it's more chill and relaxed. I'm glad I was finally able to go, but not sure it's worth the drive from all the way from Nagoya immediately the day before, unless I was already staying in Tokyo for the days right before the meet, because you have to wake up quite early to make it in time. Funnily enough though I didn't drive the car all that much this trip because it was just too damn hot. While there were zero issues and running temps were nominal and the A/C was strong, RBs already run crazy hot as it is. Sure, it took it all like a champ but something about driving these cars in the ridiculous heat/humidity bothers me and makes me feel like I'm asking too much of it. I'm just me being weird and treating the car like a living thing with feelings; I'm mechanically sympathetic to a fault. Instead I was mainly driving something else around - a KX4(silver) 2001 X-Trail GT, that I acquired in May. There's a few different flavors to choose from with Xs, but visually it's the Nissan version of the Honda CR-V. Mechanically it's a whole different story as this, being the top-trim GT, has an SR20VET mated to a four-speed auto and full-time AWD! It was a very affordable buy in exceptional condition inside and out, with very low mileage...only 48k kms. Most likely it was owned by an older person who kept it garaged and well-maintained, so I'm really happy with how it all worked out. It literally needs zero attention at the moment, albeit except for some minor visual touch-ups. I wanted something quirky, interesting, and practical and for sure it handily delivers on all three of those aspects. I was immediately able to utilize the cargo and passenger capacity to its full extent. It's a lot of fun to drive and is quite punchy through 1st and 2nd. It's very unassuming -in the twisty bits it's a lot more composed than one would think at a glance- and it'll be even better once I get better tires on it(yes, it's an SUV but still a little boat-y for my liking). So...now I have two golden-era Nissans in silver. One sports car and one that does everything else; the perfect two-car solution I think👍 The rest of the trip...I was able to turn my stressed brain off and enjoy it, although I didn't quite get to do as much as I thought. I did some interesting things, met some interesting people, and happened into some interesting situations however, that's all for another post though only if people really want to know. Project-wise, I went back to Mine's again to discuss more plans and am hoping to wrap that up real soon; keep watching this space if that interests you. Additionally, while working in the tormenting sweatbox that is the warehouse, I was able to organize most of the myriad of parts that my friend is storing for me along with the cars, and the 34 has a nice little spot carved out for it: And since it can get so stupid hot in there, that made it all the more easy -after I was standing there looking at the car and said 'f**k it'- to finally remove all the damn gauges that have mostly been an eyesore all this time. Huzzah. The heat basically makes the adhesive backing on the gauge mounts more pliable to work with, so it was far less stressful getting this done. I didn't fully clean it up or chase the wiring though; that will happen once I have the car in closer possession. Another major reason to remove all that stuff is to give people less reasons to get in my car and steal s**t while it's being exported/imported when/if the time comes, which leads us to my next point... ...and that is even though it's time in Japan is technically almost up since it's a November car and the X would be coming in March, I'm still not entirely sure where my life and career is headed; I don't really know what the future looks like and where I'm going to end up. I feel there's a great deal of uncertainty with me and as a result of that, it feels like I'm at a crossroads moreso now than any point in my life thus far and there are some choices I need to make. Yes, I've had some years to consider things and prepare myself, however too much has happened in that time to maintain confidence and everything feels so up in the air; tenuous one might say. Simply put, there's just too much nonsense going on right now from multiple vectors. Admittedly, I'm struggling to stay in the game and keep my eyes on the prize. So much so in fact, that very recently I came the closest I ever have before to calling it quits outright; selling everything and moving on and not looking back. The astute among you will pick up on key subtext within this paragraph. In the meantime I've still managed to slowly acquire some final bits for the car, but it feels nice knowing there's not much left to get and I'm almost across that finish line; I have almost everything I'll ever want for my interpretation and expression on what it is I think an R34 should be. 'til later.
×
×
  • Create New...