ekalb

I am putting Akebono pads in right now and its an extremely tight fit with the shim on the pad. Where the shim wraps around the side of the pad is making it very difficult to slide into the caliper. If I remove the shim, the pad drops right in.

I assume these shims need to be used for noise/squealing.

Has anyone else run into this?


thanks

ekalb

The fit is tight enough that it's starting to remove the coating on the shim just from trying to push it in to the caliper.

ekalb

I just spent another 30 minutes on this and I do not see anyway for the bottom pads to go in. There is just not enough space with the shims. I called Akebono earlier today to confirm I had the right pads and that I needed the shims. They said yes to both.

This has to be easier than I am making it, right?


Here is the shim on its own with out the pad. That's how bent it needs to sit in order to fit in.






















Is there some chase this "divider" between the upper and lower sections should be removed?

hayseed

iTrader: (2)

they look like new rotors -- maybe they are to fat - oem ?

StarvingArtist

There's corrosion underneath the stainless steel plate that the shims slide on. It will take some finesse to get the three screws out to clean every thing.

ekalb

Yeah, that has to be it. I found another thread on here with the same issue.

https://mbworld.org/forums/w211-amg/...corrosion.html


Any advice on removing those three bolts? They have soaked overnight in penetrating oil, but I'm not sure what other tricks exist.


Thanks

Facts Only

let us know how this goes! I have new akebono pads waiting to go on with new rotors and with my luck I'll run into the same issues your having

ekalb

After several trips back and forth from my basement (where my vice is) to my garage, I can proudly say all four front pads on the one caliper I was having issues with are all perfectly seated. I made several passes with my angle grinder to get the pads just right and they couldnt possibly fit any better. I probably needed to remove a MM of material on the bottom two pads and a little less on the top two. Clearly the corrosion on the lower section was a little worse than the top. I expect to run into the same problem on the driver side front, but I should be able to "fix" the pads in about 20 minutes taking my time now that I know what I am doing.

On to the rear pads and rotors now.

I will update with pictures tonight.

ekalb

Ok...I am done!

I learned a ton about corrosion, calipers, rotors, pads, making custom fit pads due to corrosion, heating caliper bolts, bleeding the system with DAS, etc. The joys of living in the Northeast and buying a car that spent its life in the Northeast


The car is fully back together (along with new front Arnott suspension and a new Airmatic compressor) and it has never felt better. I did end up having to use my angle grinder to shave the side of the pads and refit the shims to the newly sized pads. Once I got a system down on the first front wheel, the driver side front tok me about 30 minutes total to do everything. The rears were easy with zero corrosion issues. The passenger side rear caliper bolts took me the better part of an hour to remove, mainly due to lack of leverage, but the driver side rears tok me all of 20 minutes to do everything.

I am pretty sure I am an expert on this now


here are some pics from the day. You can see in the first pic the driver side front pads and how bent the shims are due to the corrosion. I could not remove them without removing the caliper first. After that they came out relatively easily.