Brake Caliper Rubbing Inside Wheel

[Muncle]

I took my 2002 C5 into ATS as one of my rear tyres was nearly worn out, We looked at the spare and decided to change it over as it had some more tread left, when I drove off the wheel was graunching and locking, I returned to the fitter and we took the wheel off and found it was grinding on the bottom corner of the caliper. We then decided to change the wheels back. But lo and behold the wheel I had taken off had a shiny wear strip on the inside! so I did not know what to do. I eventually decided to put the original wheel back which does not graunch. but I am worried about the wheel! Has anyone heard of this. were all C5 wheels made of metal because I had mine changed under recall 2 years ago and they said they were some plastic or strange Alloy.

 

Looking forward to hear if anyone knows anything of this.

[myglaren]

You have fallen foul of the dreaded 'rear calliper corrosion syndrome' where the callipers are pushed out at an angle to the subframe and contact the wheel.

 

You need to remove the rear callipers (or get someone to do it for you) and remove the corrosion that occurs between the calliper and subframe. You will need to renew the pads, possibly refurbish the callipers and renew the discs in extreme cases.

 

The bad news is that the callipers can be really difficult to remove without destroying them so you might in the worst case be looking at new calliper(s) too.

[paul.h]

There are a few postings on this, mostly under rear brake squeal since this is often the first symptom. Do a search.

As noted by myglaren, it is a case of removing the pads, refit the pad cover retaining bolt to keep the 2 halves of the caliper together, remove one of the caliper retaining bolts (this may be difficult due to loctite down the length of the caliper hole), clean the loctite out of the hole with a drill bit being careful not to damage the suspension arm threads, refit this bolt and repeat with the other bolt, remove both bolts, move the caliper away from the suspension arm enough to be able to clean the corrosion off the caliper and suspension arm faces with a file (should be possible without undoing the brake pipe to avoid bleeding later), put copper grease on both faces and then refit everything.

 

Somebody else may be able to comment on the wheel recall.

[Guest Chilie]

Hi - I recently did this job myself and found it to be quite a lot easier than I expected. My calipers were rubbing against the brake disk due to the corrosion. The handbrake is on the front wheels so its a fairly basic arrangement on the back brakes.

 

Start by removing the pad cover, pads and springs etc and replace the small bolt that holds the pad cover in place - do it back up tight as you are relying on this to hold the two halves of the caliper together when removed. Then disconnect the brake pipe and cover the end.

 

The two large threadlocked bolts are next and were stiff but not difficult to remove - I used a six sided socket to avoid chewing up the bolt heads and a long knuckle bar for the extra leverage. This did the trick no problems.

 

Once removed clean of all corrosion etc from the back of the caliper and the mating face of the suspension strut, I just filed it away. Apply copper grease to the faces and re assemble. You will probably find your pads are worn at odd angles and need to be replaced.

 

Only bit I wanst sure about was bleeding the brakes as i had never done it before - its a two person job and I found that it was best to open the bleed valve as someone pushes the pedal and then close it before the pedal reaches the end of its travel, keep repeating until you are sure all air is out. Doing it this way avoids air being drawn in through the threads of the bleed valve but theres other ways and kits to do it if you wish - just do a google search for bleeding brakes if your not sure.

[cardsharc]

I took my 2002 C5 into ATS as one of my rear tyres was nearly worn out, We looked at the spare and decided to change it over as it had some more tread left, when I drove off the wheel was graunching and locking, I returned to the fitter and we took the wheel off and found it was grinding on the bottom corner of the caliper. We then decided to change the wheels back. But lo and behold the wheel I had taken off had a shiny wear strip on the inside! so I did not know what to do. I eventually decided to put the original wheel back which does not graunch. but I am worried about the wheel! Has anyone heard of this. were all C5 wheels made of metal because I had mine changed under recall 2 years ago and they said they were some plastic or strange Alloy.

 

Looking forward to hear if anyone knows anything of this.

ive got a c5 and mine was rubbing to and it turned out to be the brake caliper

[hasher]

Thanks for the advice - found my problem this morning and now fixed one side. Couldn't get the spare steel wheel on in place of alloy. ;) It was a brute of a job as the bolts were really gunged up. Took lots of hammering to get them out of the calipers once off the car. Wonderful French engineering!