Just did the rotors and pads (semi metallic) on the rear brakes of my Leg. Outback w/ 130k, and now I hear a slight grinding while turning either way. I jacked it back up, inspected everything I did and it all seemed fine. It doesn't seem related to whether the brake is applied or not.

 

I thought it was maybe just them getting bedded in, so I drove it a little and it seems to have gotten better... or maybe it is just in my head.

 

Any ideas? The closest thing I could find that matched were symptoms of bad bearings... is there I chance I damaged them trying to remove the rusted-on rotors?

 

Thanks,

Andrew

Did you lubricate all the contact points and clean and relube the sliders? Bed in for street type pads usually consists of 3-8 slow downs from 60mph to 20mph or so at maybe .8-.9g, a bit before lockup or abs activation. Though for just plain 'ol street use where the pads won't ever get overheated bed in may not really be needed.

 

How did you remove the rusted on rotors? I beat mine off with a 5 lb sledge but it didn't seem to damage anything, other than the old rotors....

Sure you didn't bend the dust shields behind the rotors while you were working on them? They can be close enough to rub only when your turning. More of a scrape scrape than a grinding usually.

Good point. I did have a grinding on mine previously and it was the backing plates. The black top layer got rusty and it was rubbing against the rotor. I scraped all that junk off and it's quiet now.

It could be classified as a scraping, I guess. I'll check the dust shields... the only way I can think they got bent was if the wrench hit the dust shield while I nailed it with a hammer getting the caliper bracket bolts off. They look more solid than that though, and I think I wouldve noticed.

I'll look for rust too... there is a fair bit back there.

On mine the top layer of the backing plate still looked black, but it was like some kind of black coating. It got rusty between this coating and the metal backing plate, thus moving this coating out a bit and letting it rub against the rotor. A little noisy, but quiet after I scraped off all the offending material.

My vote is for the dust cover backing plate thingy also. I used a screw driver to pry it away from the rotor.

 

rd