My brakes go "dragga dragga dragga"

[SVOboy]

Noticed this (at least on the driver's side) yesterday while pushing the car around. What should I do!?

[Gary Palmer]

What in the world is dragga, dragga? Does it come from one side or the other, does it come from the front or the back? Is it more of a scraping type of noise, or is it more of a grinding noise?

[SVOboy]

Front driver, it's like a swishing from the brakes dragging, it's not too loud but it's definately dragging. You can also hear it pulsing from my very slightly warped rotors.

[vegasjetskier]

Beyond the obvious of having the rotors turned, make sure there is no foreign material between the rotor and the hub, and be sure to tighten the lug nuts evenly and in a staggered pattern.

[SVOboy]

Eh, I don't wanna go turn my rotors, that's boring,

Anyway, I'll take the rotor off and check what's up, haven't ever had it off I don't think.

[vegasjetskier]

Another thing you can do is to SLIGHTLY grind material away from the steel part of the pads where they touch the caliper. This will reduce friction and allow the pads to retract easier.

[SVOboy]

You mean the backplate thing? I wonder if my shims might have come loose and caused this problem...Anyway, I'll prolly take apart the whole thing and grease up the little pistons and see if that helps it retract.

[Gary Palmer]

SVOboy: What do you mean by grease the piston's. The caliper is designed for brake fluid, not grease. Grease and brake fluid are incompatible. The only place you might want to put any grease is on the guide rails for the pad's. If you haven't had the rotor's off, you will very likely need some type of impact driver, to get the phillip's head screws off. You can get a hammer type of impact tool, for not to much, which works pretty well. I doubt if you'll be able to get them off, without it. Those particular srews can be a bugger.

If the rotor's are warped, you might be able to purchase new replacement rotors for almost as much as it will cost to get them turned, unless you can go to the shop and get them to let you do it, on the side.

I wouldn't grind anything off of the backing plate on the pad's. Once you get any wear on the pad's, the calipers move in and out, and they are more than capable of retracting. One thing it could be, if it's sitting a fair amount of the time, is it could be the guides for the pad's are just coated in rust and need to be cleaned, regreased and reassembled.

Most of the time, by the time I start having noise issue's from the disk brakes, the pad's have usually worn down far enough that it's not worth it, from a time standpoint, to put anything but new pad's on. However, that's a judgement call. The pad's are usually about 1/2", or so, thick when their new and then when they get down to about 1/8" or so, you'd best be getting new one's, or you'll be buying rotor's for sure.

[SVOboy]

Guide rails look like pistons too me. This is what happens when you don't bother to learn the names for thing.

I'll start with the pad guides and then go ahead and turn my rotors. My pads still have a lot of life in them so *shrug* I might just "freshen them up" though. We shall see. It's 100 out now so screw it for a little bit.

[vegasjetskier]

Checker Auto Parts used to turn rotors for $5 each. Don't know if they still do.

Originally Posted by Gary Palmer

If the rotor's are warped, you might be able to purchase new replacement rotors for almost as much as it will cost to get them turned, unless you can go to the shop and get them to let you do it, on the side.