I get a single click noise whenever I hit the brakes while backing up. Then, it will click the first time I brake while going forward. My guess is that the pads are sliding in their holders. Is this normal? Is there anything to prevent this?

Again, it's a single click. There bolts holding the caliper bracket to the knuckle are all torqued properly.

One other thought would be worn axle splines in the hub, but I'm doubtful of that. Just looking for others' thoughts.

 

sounds like normal pad shift to me, what pads are you using?

 

Ditto. Some brands will be louder than others, it all depends on how tight they fit in the retainers.

 

Inspect the front calipers, see if a slide pin bolt came out or is loose, I see this alot from guys that do their own brakes. Check you brake pad hardware and see if its there.

 

Don't agree.. even though you said that you checked the torque of the caliper bolts... just cause you said torqued.. check them again. The caliper bracket has to be lose, or the bracket to the caliper bolts. You would feel a shatter with no brake shims.. not hear clunk sound. By the way.. do you have disc brakes in the rear.. or factory drum brakes?

 

Sounds like a hardware issue. Either a lack of lubrication or bent/worn out or missing hardware. Sometimes the shims will also take up some clearance and prevent the pads from shifting.

 

Thank you for the ideas. good to hear some of you are already aware of pad shift...

This is on a 2000 SI, so disks all around. Everything is original except for the front passenger caliper bracket which I replaced due to a frozen pin. Replaced bracket/pins with those purchased from majestic.

I used OEM honda pads and since I was doing the work used a Honda rebuild kit to replace slider boots and relube sliders correctly.

All the shims that came with the pads looked ok. Used the pad lube (black stuff) on the pad contact areas.

I triple checked the torque on the caliper bracket bolts and caliper bolts, all are ok and there's not any evidence of the bracket slipping. I even took the bolts out to make sure they weren't crossthreaded or something.

Only other thing I could think of is that I cleaned/scraped the crud off the pad holders on the bracket too well?

BTW, it's a single loud click, not a clunk.

 

Funny thing is that Honda considers the pad shift and click noise normal.(They issued a couple of service news bulletins about it in '98 or '99.) At least until around 2003, they did. Then CRV owners started to complain loudly about the click noise, and Honda issued new hardware to prevent the clicking. I find that aftermarket hardware kits work best for eliminating the clicking noise on Hondas.

 

the diag procedure for pad shift is take a business card cut it to fit the space on the rear caliper torque member and reinstall the pads and calipers test drive if noise is gone there you have it pad shift...