2 part question:

1. What's everyone using to minimize or stop brake squeal?

2. I'm planning on doing my rear brakes in a few weeks and intend on using Akebono rear pads. Rotors and calipers look healthy. Though the Akebonos are suppose to minimize dust, I have also heard horror stories that the pads eventually squeal, no matter what you use. Can anyone confirm this?

Thanks

 

Parts store will have small packs of a tacky grease that smears on the back of the pads. The operative word is "back".

I can't resist this shop tale from a Lincoln Merc dealer in Atlanta. A greenhorn mechanic asked the same question about rear drum brakes. The shop wiseguy handed him a tube of powdered graphite and told him that would stop the sqeak. Greenie squirted in the whole contents of the tube into the brake drums, and drove down the service aisle inside the garage. And the brakes of course failed, the car plowed into a Capri that belonged to the daughter of the owner of the dealership. The general manager came to the scene, and made a management decision. All mechanics were held equally liable (for not stopping it), and would remain working on the damaged cars until repairs were complete. Only then would paychecks be distributed for the week (it was Friday). My pal was a front end mechanic, and he said they worked on those cars until about 4:00AM Saturday morning. And later they took care of Mr. Wiseguy.

 

Pull the pads back out, and really clean the clips, slides, pins etc with break clean and a soft brush, then grease em up good. clean the back faceplate of the pads to and put lube on them too, good even coat. should minimize any squeel. if they new rotors and pads, do a proper "bed-in"/"break in" run in a big empty parkinglot or open empty backroad. there are lots of writeups with pics on the internet that show where and how you should put the break lube and the steps to bed the rotors and pads together in a heat up/cool down sequences, ones as good as the other in my book lol but can really made the difference. get quality pads too, cheap ones fall apart and make alot of dust (look at the front wheels of like every jeep cherokee out there hahaha) and that gets on the caliper parts and contributes to the squeels and squeeks. too much build up or scarring on the rotors can make them squeel to as they will unevenly contact the pads as the roll through causing vibrations and noise... you can have them resurfaces if there is sufficient thickness remaining. ive tried on motorcycle rotors in the past to "polish" out spots on a rotor, but never had success myself so i dont think thats a valid option unless you are a skilled metalsmith lol

 

I have run Akebono pads for nearly 3 years both on and off the road and only got them to squeak once on a really hard trail.
Make sure your rotors are not glazed, that they are with in specs and use only the supplied noise supresant supply with your pads.
Make sure to d a full 2 quart DOTY 4 brake flush when you are done.

 

I bought cheapo pads last time, i'll never do that again. They squeaked something bad.