When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
So I have had the often discussed E Brake squeal since installing my Nitron coilovers. Noise is on the driver side and I am certain it is E break related as it goes away when I lightly lift up on the E break.
Today I decided to finally mess with it as I have been embarrassed more than once driving around with it squeaking. I noticed one of my bolts on either side was loose enough that I could tighten by hand, so I lightly tightened both sides with a torque wrench but then the car was literally stuck in place so I backed the bolts to just hand tightened.
I took the car for a drive around the neighborhood and the noise is gone but I swear it feels like the E break is ever so lightly applied (shows off on dash). Obviously I do not want to drive
around with the e brake lightly on but I can’t imagine having 4 bolts (2 in pic below) any lighter than hand tightened.
Does anyone have the procedure to putting the brake caliper back together that may provide direction as to how tight they should be?
From what I remember you have to:
1. remove the caliper
2. back or remove the set screw from underneath
3. push the piston back in by rotating it
4. re-align the set screw with the slot
5. put the pads back on and re-install the caliper.
6 pulling on the hand brake will re-adjust the hand brake
Handyman2009 is correct and I suspect someone didn't tighten the bolt because they did not know to retract the mechanical piston. Retract the piston before tightening the bolts.
Thanks guys, I was the who installed them and believe I retracted the piston (not 100% certain as it was over a year ago). The e brake would not have worked though had I not retracted prior to tightening, correct? It has been working fine, just the light squeal at times.
Perhaps this may help, in the below picture, do you have the same gap between both sides of the caliper? Thanks!
I will check mine tonight but I don't believe that I have any gap between the front and the back part of the caliper. I will get back to you later tonight when I am home
Appreciate it, that should help to determine if there is a problem then with mine. Probably hard to tell in pic but where aarow is pointing is largest gap (roughly 3-4mm). Other side is about 2mm and neither of the e brake caliper sides are touching. Thanks!
Pretty hard to take pictures with the wheels on the car but you can see that there is no gap... you probably didn't push back the piston far enough. Good luck with the fix
Thanks for all the replies, pictures and link. I just can't believe I've been driving around like this for over a year engaging the parking brake often, and never having an issue!
I have a staple in my brand new PS4S so I have to take my wheel off anyways and will give this a go in the next two weeks. Seems like a major pain in the butt to get right!
Thanks Handyman. I wondered. When I did rear brake pads, I purchased a tool to retract the brake pistons. They went back in so easily that I returned the unopened tool. Thanks to Redpants Rich for the tech tip.
My car is a 2011 V8V S roadster. I recently put in a new battery and came up with a little trick that may help someone else. Check my post titled "the battery is in". Thanks to everyone on this site
