I went back and checked the weight thing - here is what the weights look like. I think these are in the front and the little round ones in the rear...

 

thx slider, i am stymied as i dont even recognize those! but if missing? man, that would suck but explain. thx, will look into it next time i do pads. fronts are "soon".

 

Eh... it only takes about 10 minutes per side to put them in - not a biggy...

 

yeah, how long could it take? lol i'm just wondering why i had no idea what they are/were and why i may be missing mine!

have you known of installing pads and leaving them off, inadvertently or whatever? i swear. never seen them before.

 

It would be hard to leave them off inadvertently because they would be sitting on the floor after the pad change and you would be wondering where they went - although - you may have thought they were part of the pad if they were firmly attached (and they usually are) and tossed them in the garbage stuck to the old pad. If you didn't notice the difference, I guess you could.

I have only replace the weights once. I think I've changed pads 3 times in the last 10 years.

 

i appreciate the advice and the mystery. how many brake pads have i gone thru in a decade plus also, and never even seen or known of these? and yet.

this is the first time ever i have had the ( albeit ) cheap a** textars squealing on this porka. i will look more closely when i next remove the bits and report accordingly. thanks again.

 

You may have never seen them because they remained stuck in your calipers. When in the calipers the brake pad side will simply look like two flat round discs in the back and just a flat metal plate in the front. I've changed pads regularly between track and street but have never changed these shims. I have had no squeal with street pads.

 

that makes sense, thanks. the irony is that since i mentioned the squeal i've had over the last 2k miles since i swapped pads. it has ( for now ) seemingly stopped and it's worse when it's "hot" outside, which it is. really odd. like i reverse jinxed them by mentioning it lol.

maybe it had to do with material depth, who knows - hope they stay quiet.