Mailing List lml@lancaironline.net Message #5945
From: James Frantz <LFrantz@compuserve.com>
Sender: James Frantz <LFrantz@compuserve.com>
Subject: Brake caliper clanking
Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2000 13:37:35 -0400
To: INTERNET:lancair.list@olsusa.com <lancair.list@olsusa.com>
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Rick,
When I shut the engine down and coast to a stop, I can hear the floating
callipers clanking too.  I was never very impressed with the Matco brake
due to the lousy tollerances they held, the sub standard brake pads, and
the propensity for the puck to jam preventing the brakes from releasing
after the brakes being applied.  As you know from several LNN articles and
numerious Service Difficulties and SBs, Matco's brakes were not the only
problem.  Matco also produced lousy brake cylinders, lousy disks and lousy
wheel hubs.  I believe all of these problems have been corrected but your
kit and mine are of the vintage where we had to deal with all of their earlier design and production problems.

The reason I mentioned the pad wear is that uneven wear will allow the puck
to cant in the cylinder causing it to jam.  I replace the pads, as you have
done, upon the first indication of uneven wear which usually occurs with
lots of pad left.  The last set of pads (Cleveland) seem to be wearing much
better.   I believe the clanking is mostly due to the lousy tollerances
between the sliders and callipers.  What you are hearing is the calliper
banging around on its slider.  The calliper movement could be caused by
loose wheel bearings, a warped disk, a disk with varying thickness, poor caliper/slider tollerances or a combination of all the above. The clanking
is normal for a Matco product but don't overlook the possibility that it
could be indications of something more serious.  I'm a little miffed why
you would not have heard the clanking earlier unless your old pads  were so
worn that the callipers rested on the sliders with no motion at all.

Jim Frantz  

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