My brakes (actually just front driver's side) make a grinding noise when I come to a complete stop. Then after I begin to accelerate again, it still make a noise, but almost like a belt noise, because it goes faster and faster as I accelerate and eventually stops once I get going a bit. Could this part be that the pads are still making brief contact? At higher speeds the brakes squeel and whine a bit, but grind when stopping. Any ideas? Help appreciated - I'm new to this forum as I just bought an Accord. By the way it's a 95 coupe. Thanks in advance.

 

Could be the rotors.

 

have u checked out ur brakes yet? like, remove the wheel and take pads out and check to see if everything is in good shape and working ryte? maybe ur pads need changing, or like said about ur rotors r bad

 

I am planning to take them apart tonight, never really done it thoough. Anything I should be careful of or anything in particular to look for? Will it be obvious if the pads are shot? What about calipers? Coould they be squeezed too tight due to pads being worked too far down - is this even a possibilty? Thanks for your replies.

 

In general, grinding noises from your brakes is BAD!. The main possibilities are theat it's either the wear indicator on your brakes or that you're scraping the rotor. Either way, something's rubbing against the rotor that shouldn't be. When you tear down the wheel, look at your rotor. If it has any deep grooves (1/16" or so), it'll probably have to be remachined or replaced. As for the pads, make sure the abradable material (the coarse, probably gray stuff that contacts the rotor) is thick enough that the wear indicator (the funny looking bent piece of metal) isn't touching the rotor. Finally, the easiest way to diagnose siezed calipers is uneven pad wear. If one brake pad is severely worn and the other is at about 50%, chances are you've got a siezed caliper.

If you're lucky, it'll just be the wear indicator (that usually makes the high whine). In that case, all you need to do is pull the caliper off, compress the piston (usually with a big C-clamp), and slide in new brake pads. All in all, this is about a $20 and 2 hour job, at worst. If the rotor's grooved or the caliper's siezed, it's gonna cost you significantly more. I think a new rotor's about $60-$80 (and it looks relatively easy to install), although I've never done one myself. Calipers are in the neighborhood of $150, and you should have the work professionally done if you have ABS (even more $$$).

As for what I've done, I've repalced pads several times on my 93 EX, and (due to the ABS) had all of my calipers and rotors professionally replaced (I had the rotors done because they were already doing the calipers, otherwise I'd do them myself). So, I've seen the entire brake system inside and out. Feel free to follow up if you have any mroe questions.

One final note: You can remove the calipers from the rotor without disconnecting the brake lines. Donot disconnect the brake lines during disassembly unless you're prepared to bleed the system.

 

when you t ake off your wheels try not to breath in the break dust its poison.. usualy i get a water hose ans wet the rotor/break down while the wheels off so the dust stays down

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Dj14aZnS &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">when you t ake off your wheels try not to breath in the break dust its poison.. usualy i get a water hose ans wet the rotor/break down while the wheels off so the dust stays down</TD></TR></TABLE>

i hope you do this after car has been sitting fir hrs you dont want to spray cold watwer on a hot rotor

 

Thanks all for your replies, they have been very useful. So I got the caliper off and noticed that the inner pad was shot to hell and the outer pad still had a lot of pad left. So I am going to replace the caliper for the first time. No ABS, so I should be able to do it if my wife helps me bleed the brakes. What is the piston people keep talking about. I have a hard time picturing it.

 

The piston is the hydraulic actuator that actually provides the clamping force for the brake pads.

If you look at the inside of the caliper, the piston will be in piston in the middle of one side (I belive it's the side towards the center of the car, but I'm not certain). It'll look like a little round piece of metal surrounded by a rubber boot. If you have trouble getting the new pads to fit around the rotor on installation, what you''l have to do is take a big C-clamp (mine's about 12") and compress the piston until it's flush with the inside of the caliper. However, it should already be retracted on a new caliper, so you probably won't have to worry about this.

Best of luck with the repairs!