Rear disc brakes

[27_craig]

Hi all, I think the offside rear brake pad is rubbing slightly on the disc on my mk4 ibiza. Does anyone know how I adjust it so they don't rub? Cheers

 

[RUM4MO]

Take the calliper and pads out and clean up everything, including taking out the plated fitting kits that fit between the pads and the calliper bracket. Idealy remove the calliper mounting bracket and check the inside face of the disc to make sure that it is not corroded from lack of use (rear brakesd are not asked to do much). That cleaning up should include removing as much rust build up round the edges of the swept areas. Do both sides, reassemble as it adding a touch of anti-seize grease at the pad<>mounting bracket contact points. That should be enough to free them up.

Oh, and after this, fit the new return springs you are about to buy, maybe even slacken the handbrake cable off slightly while making sure the handbrake "handle" lift is not excessive.

 

[Nahguam]

Having same sort of issue with mine, but the hand brake is not applying properly and when the cable is adjusted its not helping, just making the handbrake stiffer to apply but applying no more force, at about 6 clicks it can still pull away off the handbrake without bogging down, you can hear the pads creaking. Anyone shed any light onto the subject? Tried cleaning it all up yesterday, no joy

 

[RUM4MO]

Having same sort of issue with mine, but the hand brake is not applying properly and when the cable is adjusted its not helping, just making the handbrake stiffer to apply but applying no more force, at about 6 clicks it can still pull away off the handbrake without bogging down, you can hear the pads creaking. Anyone shed any light onto the subject? Tried cleaning it all up yesterday, no joy

That is not good, normally the handbrake on these cars, especially cars with rear discs, is very "light" to use. You say that you have tried to clean them up, did you take the calliper off its mounting and remove the pads, and, remove the fitting kit and cleaned them and under them? Now if you have done that, when you apply the handbrake, if you look inside the car behind the handbrake lever, does the equaliser bracket sit "across" the car, or at an angle? Another thing, are both swept faces of the discs shiny or matt grey? Finally, have you tried re-zeroing the pistons, ie winding them fully back in using the correct tool? If you do this then you have proved that the pistons can move and the handbrake "screw" still works freely. One last thing, if the handbrake levers are not free to move fully when the pistons are retracted, then you might try to free them up by getting something in through the outer seals - I would tend to limit the "something" to being brake fluid.

 

[Nahguam]

Yeah I have cleaned the fitting fit and as you say 'zero' the piston using a bluepoint brake calliper winding tool, the equaliser is unbalanced with one side tighter/shorter than the other, the swept faces are grey / blue in colour with prints of the pad all over them, only changed the pads and discs about 3 months ago due to the rust from the edge eating into the swept face of the disc, I've no idea how brake calipers work with handbrakes as I work on Plant and don't ever see anything like this..