Rear brakes had been making awful noise. Especially right side. I ordered mid grade rotors/pads from Atlantic British for $409.

I have never done breaks before, but project seemed straight forward enough. 5 lugs, 4 bolts, 1 screw...

As I got into it, the rust/corrosion made some nuts/bolts a real challenge. 2 of the lugs seem to have deformed and they are tough to work with.

Finally got caliper off and piston was frozen. Wouldnt budge. Not no how. Ordered new rear calipers. Arrived next day. The outside pad on right side was down to metal. All other 3 pads well worn and in need of changing, but still intact.

In the meantime, my arnotte air suspension bags arrived with no retention clips. Installed them. Right rear didnt lock into place at bottom, but I lined up the little nubbies on top. The left side bag installed and locked firmly on bottom. Had to order new retention clips at rather crazy price plus crazy price to over night them. I had called local parts store and they said they didnt have them. The next day I was in VIP and they had a whole rack of retaining clips. My guess is one of theirs would have worked for about 2.50 for 4. I ended up paying 15$ for those stupid clips. Stealership wanted $8 each!

So the next day I have both suspension bags in with clips. I did not use new nut/compression fittings. I just screwed in old air hose. Is that ok? Right rear new caliper, rotor, pads installed.

Left rear brakes coming apart nicely. Then one of the top 12mm hex bolts totally locked in. Project stopped again as I looked at options. That caliper seemed frozen too. But I had new caliper. But I couldnt get it off of the other piece (what's it called?). I tried using hack saw to cut a slot for heavy flat head impact driver. I couldnt get good angle, so i undid banjo bolt and totally detached caliper assembly. The impact driver didnt work. I next tried smashing a 7/16 hex ratched head on 12 mm bolt. Bang bang bang it was on. Still wouldnt budge. I then took jack handle, slipped it over ratchet to increase lever size, and presto!

So from there is went smoothly. Put on new rotor. Reconnected brake line to new caliper. Hooked it all back up again. Put pads on, locked down caliper. Bled both breaks. Just took a few cycles on each side. Fluid was like medium dark ****. I was told that was ok - right?

Feeling good.

I wont get into my dumb *** 'dont forget to put wood or something underneath jackstands and jack when lifting heavy vehicle on crappy asphalt' mistake.

I take her down our steep driveway and survive.

But I hear the right rear making an abrasive scratchy sound. Not squeeling. More like scraping.

The left rear is quiet and smooth.

Could that be the pads just settling in? Or did I screw up somewhere? The sound is almost the same as before I even changed the brakes. It definitely needed new brakes, but is there something else that might cause that sound?

Tomorrow I will remove wheel and inspect. What should I look for? As I recall when the car was jacked up, I turned both rotors manually and the right rear was a lot tougher to turn - as if the pads were pushing against the rotor. Both sides had this, but right rear much more.

So should there be any scratch sound when I manually rotate rotors with new brakes?

Any advice appreciated. We are hoping to leave on small vacation Tuesday morning and we need our canyonero.

To make matters worse, it looks like the NEW right rear air bag isnt holding air. That is the whole reason we got new bags. 70k miles. the right rear has been sagging for a long time, but compressor just pumps it right back up. I know the compressor works. What else could be causing a new bag to lose air?

Thanks!

 

Next time do a 3 or 4 line very specific question, they are much easier reading and quicker to reply to.
PM me your tele number and I'll call you.

 

I removed right rear wheel to inspect brakes.

I tried to rock the hub but it was solid. Phew.

I then removed 12mm hex on lower side of caliper, flipped caliper open, and took a look.

Not much to see at first. Removed pads. They looked ok. Bottom 1/3 of one pad had rusty dust. The new rotors had enough time in moist weather to develop a bit of rust. Normal enough.

Then I noticed that top edge of rotor (the tread if it were a tire) had a new groove worn into it. About 1mm in from outer edge. Groove maybe 0.5mm (?).

That must be the metal scraping we heard.

The caliper bracket seemed to have enough clearance.

The inside of caliper didnt show any wear to indicate it was rubbing rotor. How could it with pads/springs?

So my brain can't wrap itself around thgis becuase I have no experience fixing cars.

Can someone please advise? What is rubbing against outer edge of rotor?

Thanks.

 

Disco Mike helped diagnose must be just poorly cast caliper. He said no harm in either filing caliper edge, or letting the rotor/caliper continue to grind until issue resolved. Since I had caliper open already, I just took a file to each edge for about a minute then took her for a spin.

Still hear faintest of noise, but I think issue resolved.

Thanks.

To anyone who struggled through my first long winded and poorly written post -

Sorry!