Disc pad problem

Posted by Craig Hendrickson On 2016/7/4 13:41:04

I'm posting this is in "General" because there are now front disc brake conversions available for several post war Packards. Back in 2001, I installed a custom engineered front disc brake conversion on my 1955 Patrician. It has never given me any problem until recently when I decided to replaced the pads with new ones from NAPA, "just because" it had been 15 years. There was not actually anything wrong with the existing pads as they were only about 1/2 worn and showed no negative signs.

I went to my local NAPA store and bought new pads for a 1975 Chevy Impala which matched the discs that I used in my custom conversion. So far so good.

About 1 month later the right front brake started making funny scraping noises with an occasion groan. I pulled the pads out and the "anti-rattle" plate on the outside pad had broken loose and was hanging caught between the caliper holding bolts. I modified it to eliminate the noise, chalking the failure to "sometimes stuff happens", after all it was a top-of-the-line NAPA part.

About 2 weeks after the above, the left front started making the same kind of noise, but worse with a resonant "groaning" on certain low-speed turns while turning. Again, I removed that wheel and the failure was the same: the anti-rattle plate had broken loose from the pad and was trapped between the holding bolts.

I removed both "new" pads and replaced them with the "old" pads which were only 1/2 worn. Problem solved completly.

I returned the broken pads to NAPA and got my $ back. But, I suspect that NAPA has outsourced their brand name disc pads to China or somewhere, because I'm sure it was a design or manufacturing defect, not a QA problem on one pad.

FYI

Craig