Brake pads, brake shims and brake squeal!

[Dwardu]

Hi,

Summary in advance in case you cant be bothered to read:
– My brakes squeal
– I have metal shims to put on my brake pads
– They have hooks but slip around a bit regardless
– Shall I affix them with silicone paste to keep them steady?

I am the owner of a 1999 Honda civic hatchback. A while ago I went through the process of changing my brake pads, using some cheap-o Honda imitation pads. These came with metal shims with hooks on top, and at the time I didn’t actually know what they were for and I removed them thinking they were just some fancy packaging.

Of course now, I have a lot of brake squeal and its very, very annoying! And so I plan to open stuff up again and put those shims on. I did some browsing and came across this video of ETCG regarding brake shim failure and I was wondering about how to go about putting those shims on, because although they have their little hook thingies, they do slide around a bit.

I was thinking of maybe applying some silicone paste between the pad and the shim? and then copper grease on the other end of the shim where it would contact the piston.

Thanks !

Topic

[Ryan]

Since you already detached the shims from the pads yes you probably should affix them with something. Preshimmed pads are usually ready to go, just FYI for anybody else. I would recommend using CRC Disc Brake Quiet (the red/orange stuff) on the back of the pads, then attach the shim to the back. You don’t really need anything on the back of the shim but if you want you can put more Disc Brake Quiet on it.

I am an avid watcher of briansmobile1 on YouTube (I strongly recommend you check out his videos), and this is how he does it. He uses the disc brake quiet product to basically “glue” the shims on. He also puts it on the back of the shims (just where either the piston or the “fingers” of the caliper contact the pad) but that is not strictly necessary.

I would also caution you that even with doing this and using the disc brake quiet you may still have brake noise since you used cheap pads. Higher end pads like Raybestos Professional Grade, Wagner ThermoQuiet, or Akebono are your best bet. More expensive pads will be quieter and brake better, brakes aren’t a place to cheap out (don’t go crazy and get racing pads or something either).

That was pretty long so I’m going to be quiet now….good luck!

[EricTheCarGuy]

Cheap pads are just that, cheap and will be noisy as a result. That said they’ll be noisy if you have shims or not so rather than risking damage to your rotors throw the shims away, don’t waste your time trying to glue them on because they wont’ stay anyway. As I said, cheap pads are just that, cheap. Next time try Akebono ceramic and you’ll notice a big difference.

[Dwardu]

Took your advice and tossed the shims but for what its worth I opened it up anyway and smacked some copper grease where there is piston-pad contact. There is still noise, but at least it went from non-stop screech of death to an ignorable screech which comes and goes. I’ll buy some good pads next time, thanks!

[EricTheCarGuy]

I’m not a fan of that either as I’ve also found that to be ineffective and it makes a nice mess to clean up later, it won’t harm anything though. The bright side is that the pads you have are probably metallic which means they will last a long time. Come to think of it that’s probably not such a good thing given you’ll have to live with the noise longer.

[Author]

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