First off, I still have 65% left in the front and about 70-75% in the rears. These are no name brakes from autozone. They worked fine, no squealing, cus they were done right by my cousin, we did'nt even have to use the anti-squealing goo. Now as some of you may know or not know, my front driver-side boot was ripped. I had this old mechanic replaced it. Now I drive off and hear clanking noise, as if the two rotors were hitting eachother or whatever. Now I have been driving with this noise for 2-3 months now. I recently noticed I had to add more brake fluid twice, within 3 weeks. I checked brake hose and found that my front driver-side brake hose was slowly leaking. So I got a new one at Nissan and had my cousin install it for me. When he took the wheel off, he noticed that big nut with the safety pin that tightens the rotor was loose, compared to the passenger side. He was able to turn and tighten that nut about half an inch more in until it was tighten like the passenger side. He replaced the brake hose, we bleed it and I drive it. Now I get no more vibration at 70mph, but my brake feels too loose when I hit it, only after pumping it a few times it gets that tighter and tighter feeling. How can we adjust this? My theory is that since we tightened the rotor and moved it in about half an inch, that this was giving that much gap between the caliper or brake pads. And this is the reason that after I pump the brake, the fluid pushes the caliper or brake pad in after pumping it.

Well I hoped I have explained this to the best of my knowledge. Also, when I do a hard brake to test it, it locks up the front passenger-side and pulls that way too.

 

What condition is your rotor in? i know alot of people forget to recut their rotors when changing their brakes and it causes squeaking and grinding and lots of other annoying problems.

 

Could be a bunch of things. First , That big bolt with the pin doesn't hold the rotor on. The rotor rests on a collar that goes around that whole hub. Properly tighening the lugs nuts is what holds the rotor flush against this surface. Second, either grease from the boot or the leaking brake fluid could have contaminated the rotor and pads on that wheel. When you changed the line did you clean the whole area with brake cleaner? If not cleaned really well, this type of contamination will lead to little or no braking on that wheel, causing the car to pull to the right when the brakes are applied. Lastly, bleeding brakes right is a PITA, I'd do them again, but I'm betting that from what I understood from your post that the problem is a contaminated surface. Best of luck.

 

Your brake caliper mounts to hardware thats attached to your knuckle assembly. You rotor is attached to your hub which was lose due to the fact of the bolt. If that bolt was lose, then your rotor and hub assembly was not sitting in line with your caliper. Now the caliper is supposed to sort of float on pins. It's very possible that you wore the pads down a little uneven and your getting uneven pressure on the rotor. Check the pins to see if there frozen or just lazy. If the caliper can't move, your inside pad will ware before the outside one does. As it gets worse you can actually see the caliper push the rotor to one side.

Remove the 2 bolts that hold the caliper on and check the guide pins to see if they move easily. If not, then remove, clean and regrease them. Check out motorvate.com website for detailed procedures of how to do this.

 

I had this same problem with my truck. The fix for me was to remove the two front calipers, clean and regrease the caliper sliding mechanism, use brake cleanre on the rotors and pads, use an emory cloth on the rotors and pads to clean off the glazing, and then put everything back together, using a torque wrench on every bolt. Then, I rebled the whole brake system using a new container of fluid. Any contaminant on the rotor/pad is going to make your brakes nearly useless - all it takes is a little brake fluid.

Also, I bleed brakes using an EZ-Bleed, which applies constant pressure to a large reservoir containing brake fluid, which pumps brake fluid into the car's reservoir under about 10psi of pressure. Then I just go from bleed-screw to bleed-screw, attach a clear hose and open until I see clear fluid with no air bubbles. This is a much faster and more reliable method than the two-man open-pump-hold-close-release method... I never mastered the two-man method - I always left the bleed screw open when my friend released the brake pedal, sucking air back in. As well as that, I damaged the master cylinder seals on my old Volvo doing the two-man-method, because the pedal is not under tension and is typically pressed much further than it normally goes - pushing the seals into a section of the master cylinder where the bore may not be as smooth. My 15yr-old Volvo had rust in the bore which tore up the seals.

Good luck!

 

Where can I find this EZ-Bleed too? or kit?

 

take it to the brake store =)

 

Most speed shops have them for around $50, or if you search here I think it was Jeff92SE who posted directions on how to make your own.

 

get under you car and look at all the brakes.

there should be 4 bolts attached to the backside of each rotor

 

I couldn't find one in the US, so the last time I went to Englad I bought one there. 'bout $50. Maybe Halfords has an online store...

 

You need to take it to a qualified guy who can check the entire system thoroughly.This might just be a "lack of knowledge" problem
Get your rotors resurfaced before you get new pads on them...Also for your and other's safety don't play with the braking system..2-3 months on a noisy caliper/ rotor is very risky..Look for bent bolts

take care,
jay

 

I am going to have bleed my brakes again tomorrow. Gonna adjust the caliper piston, front, by turning it. Wish me luck, right now I am pumping the brakes whereas if I hit the brake initially it would go close to the floor, pumping it does not allow me to do that. I just want to prevent damaging the master shaft. I let y'all know tomorrow howdy went, aight!?

 

Sounds like you need to re-bleed the system.

BTW, the axle nut (the one that you found was loose) should be torqued to 174-231 ft-lbs.

 

Thanks. Found out that my master cylinder is shot, that is why the brake fluid was leaking. I cleaned my old brake line and we did not find any leak on it. I am scheduling this saturday to fix it when he gets the part in. Right now I am avoiding driving as much as possible, and avoiding cars at a great distance, and applying brake before I get too close. He is chargind $250, the part is about $200.

 

$200 for a master cylinder? Ouchie!

I remember paying $20 for a rebuilt MC for my '81 Volvo...

 

Well this is brand new and direct from a Nissan dealer. He is getting a discounted price because he is a mechanic. I would say it's a good investment. My car is over 150k miles, I would like to see it over 250k miles.