Brake Noises Thread

[crazynick505]

I have been battling all kinds of random noises from my Brembos since ownsership of my Galant, as I'm sure we've all dealt with at some stage by the sounds

I wanna find out what noises everyone else's brakes make/made and find out what you did to stop it.

I'll go first:

1: Creaking noises
Even if I was stopped and just stepped on the pedal you could hear a pretty loud creaking noise coming from both front calipers.

Tried the usual brake lube, making sure all moving parts in and around the caliper/pads had some. No deal.
After rebuilding my calipers entirely (Same pistons - New seals) while getting them powder coated and chucking new pads in, the creak stopped. While fixing my second brake noise (Below) I swapped my old pads back in and realised the noise came back. Even with new seals etc.

In conclusion: Creaking = Worn Pads/Overextending Pistons?

2: Horrendous brake squeal
After having my brakes re-done, I grabbed some new pads to go with - Keeping the old rotors.

Pads/Rotors:
New Front - QFM A1RM
New Rear - Unsure of brand (Will add when I find name)
Old Front - Project Mu NS400
Old Rear - Project Mu NS400
Old Rotors - Unsure of brand - Drilled and slotted

The front Pads I had shims for, so I used some brake squeal stopper in behind those. The rear pads I didn't have shims for, so I just put a little bit of squeal stopper on the pads.
The loud squeal started from there.

I then swapped to new DBA T3 Rotors in the front, which made 0 difference.
Put my old pads back in the front - 0 difference.
Put my old pads back in the rear, with a bit more squeal stopper - Squeal went away.
EDIT 27/10: Put the new pads back in the front and squeal came back.

I then went ahead and bought some new shims for the rear, thinking that was the only thing I didn't have that I probably should have. Slapped all my new pads back in with squeal stopper between the pad and shim, as well as some on the outer side of the shim, making sure the arrow on the shim was facing UP (Which I believe is correct?)
Even LOUDER brake squeal than before.

So I'm taking the rear pads back and swapping them for some A1RMs on Saturday to see if that makes any difference. We'll see how that goes *Sigh*
EDIT 27/10: Will be redoing all grease etc as well and checking bolts and dust guards.


So anyways, let me know of your brake noise experiences and how you fixed them Maybe We can all get some ideas from this haha

 

[Gav]

That clunking sound could either be mounting bolts not tight enough or maybe wrong length bolds used.
I’ve also heard that when brembos develop a crack they give off a creaking sound.

Now I’m running brembos in my car and it’s daily driven with no squealing.
Here is my Current setup.
Dba t3 rotors
Qfm hpx from memory.
Have also ran Remsa pads with no problems.
Stock brembo shim plates.
Lots of copper grease in all the pad backing and on the plates.

 

[crazynick505]

That clunking sound could either be mounting bolts not tight enough or maybe wrong length bolds used.
I’ve also heard that when brembos develop a crack they give off a creaking sound.

I'll have to give that a check actually. The bolts that I have definitely aren't OEM, they look like generic hardware with crush washers.
I didn't see any signs of cracking after the powder coat, but it's all probably coated to a point I couldn't see that now anyways

 

[AKKO]

Shims / grease / proper assembly / breaking in process / dust shields / pad compound...

 

[Gav]

I used half a tube of copper grease when I put mine back together.

 

[crazynick505]

I used half a tube of copper grease when I put mine back together.

Oh wow, Maybe I should just go HAM with the grease haha

 

[crazynick505]

So I had a better look at my fronts and found that it may have been the new pads getting caught on the fresh powder coat that covered the bits the pads slide on. One of those bits had powder coat flicking up, I'm assuming from the pad getting caught on it.

Seems to be all good now, although still every now and again out of the blue getting a squeal from the front right. But definitely driveable now

 

[naughtika]

ill be tackling this issue again soon as I have T3 rotors as well as brembo pads. when I had oe evo rotors and brembo pads setup, they never squealed on me.

but since replacing it with RDA rotors - tried several brands of pads, from Bendix Ultimate, QFM HPX as well as Ferodo. They all squealed. Then I went on Elig 2021 which seems to have fixed my issue.

i will try the anti squeal on the back of the pads next time, perhaps this was my issue as well.

 

[Blackbird]

After installing my Brembos and rotors from my old Legnum onto the new legnum about a month ago.. exactly the same setup..
My old car suffered from horrific brake squeal..initially. I tried many pads (Brembo/EBC's) and different methods (shims, grease, skimming both the pads and rotors, Even tried different rotors albeit crappy ones..RDA standards...no slotting or cross drilling) They were by far the worst....
Even bought the project Mu anti squeal shims ($180 a set!!!!)

Current setup: QFM HP-X pads all round..
Standard stock Mitsubishi rotors (bought new ones as the old were right on the wear limit) all four corners

No squeal whatsoever...ever.. both on the old car and now with the new...The pads have a bevel on the leading and trailing edges though...
No greases, Stock shims..... Though, I re-torque my wheel nuts in a star pattern first to about a quarter of the final torque then again at full torque (about two elbow clicks lol)
Don't have an issue... thankfully.. the old car with RDA's was a cross between a freight train/truck and a demented canary lol.

My guess is the stock rotors are a "softer" metal and resist squeal better than most...(though expensive new..) Having calipers with directly opposing pistons will always have a squeal issue but it is fixable..my fix was the Stock standard Mitsubishi Evo Rotors.. after that noise was gone instantly without doing anything else.
My Evo hasn't ever squealed either.. that's stock too with Brembo pads (dusty much!!!)

 

[crazynick505]

I just gave some new HPX pads a go and made sure to bed them in accordingly.
Definitely changes the face of the rotors to more of a dull finish but getting the exact same squeal

I didn't use my metal shims this time either, I just put grease on the back of the shim already stuck to the HPX pads. So looking more into it today to see what else could be causing it. Imma try swapping back to my old rda rotors to see if it changes at all.

 

[Gav]

I just gave some new HPX pads a go and made sure to bed them in accordingly.
Definitely changes the face of the rotors to more of a dull finish but getting the exact same squeal

I didn't use my metal shims this time either, I just put grease on the back of the shim already stuck to the HPX pads. So looking more into it today to see what else could be causing it. Imma try swapping back to my old rda rotors to see if it changes at all.

what rotors are you using nick?
i used copper grease and the metal shims on my setup.
my car never makes a noise

 

[crazynick505]

Spent all day testing today.

Rotors are dba t3s, same as yours I believe?

The squeal is only coming from the drivers side since my last attempt to fix them so all these tests were done to that side.

Swapped In HPX pads all round - exact same squeal
Swapped my rotor back to my old rda one - exact same squeal
Removed my dust shield - no difference
Back to dba rotor and removed all the powdercoat on the pad slider guide bits - same squeal
Lubed up everything that touches anything again - no difference

Finally went and did some abs braking and got the pads and rotors real hot and it still has the exact same squeal but at a much lower volume.

I don't actually know if there is anything else for me to try at this stage tbh haha. I guess this is it

 

[twisted32]

Another thing to consider if trying to rectify brembo squeal is wheel bearings. After fitting the Brembo's (which I had put a seal kit through, and replaced a couple of pistons), DBA4000 slotted rotors and Remsa pads all around, I was unable to get the front left to stay quiet at light braking loads (general city driving). Tried with & without shims, Wurth anti-squeal spray, swapping front rotors L>R, numerous hard braking "bedding in" runs, and even a set of Ferodo DS pads. Throughout this, the front left remained the only corner to squeal.
After checking the wheel bearings, there was a small amount of play in the front left, only about 1mm at the tyre, only just noticeable whilst checking while on stands. So I replaced that wheel bearing, and now it has not made a noise for about 1000km....
So, if you can't seem to eliminate your brembo squeal, have a good close look for any play in your wheel bearings.

 

[crazynick505]

Another thing to consider if trying to rectify brembo squeal is wheel bearings. After fitting the Brembo's (which I had put a seal kit through, and replaced a couple of pistons), DBA4000 slotted rotors and Remsa pads all around, I was unable to get the front left to stay quiet at light braking loads (general city driving). Tried with & without shims, Wurth anti-squeal spray, swapping front rotors L>R, numerous hard braking "bedding in" runs, and even a set of Ferodo DS pads. Throughout this, the front left remained the only corner to squeal.
After checking the wheel bearings, there was a small amount of play in the front left, only about 1mm at the tyre, only just noticeable whilst checking while on stands. So I replaced that wheel bearing, and now it has not made a noise for about 1000km....
So, if you can't seem to eliminate your brembo squeal, have a good close look for any play in your wheel bearings.

I think you might be on to something..
I have swapped anything and everything around so many times now that I gave up and have just been dealing with it. It's the exact same situation where it is only one front wheel and only while braking really lightly. It's also the same corner of the car that has a little clunk every now and again...

I might check this out

 

[naughtika]

might as well chime in as I was in the same situation a while back..


right now I still have the same setup with the RDA rotors and Elig 2021 pads combo. Since stepping into this combination, my brake squeal eventually went away. Not sure what really helped to make it disappear as from the initial install of the Elig 2021's I still had squeal.

not sure if I had mentioned this, I have a set of DBA T3 plain rotors + Brembo pads, I will soon be trying this and I hope I don't get the squeal.

If I do, I'll slap on another set of Elig 2021's in there