Out of Brakes

[nine-fiver]

You know how you think you have everything under control? The 'reliable one' seems to be ok, drives well, stops well...hang-on what's that noise? A grinding from the front left under braking and turning. Rat's! I really don't need this right now, with the Vortex sucking funds out of my wallet on a regular basis. A grand in a week. The embarrassment factor is now very high as people in car parks turn their heads when the 'reliable one' pulls in to a spot.
It still drives brilliantly, and stops nicely. Except for that noise. Brake pads look good on a cursory external inspection. From the outside at least.
But now she says, take the wheel off and check it out. I'm thinking a stone caught in the rotor guard.
But no...the inner front left pad has been ground down to less than a millimeter. Maybe less.
So, outside one has 5mm on it. Inner is shot. Car up on jacks. It's Sunday afternoon. Should have gone to the local parts guy and asked. But, no, we went to IKEA! TWICE!!
Now, the reliable one is up on jacks, its cold outside, and the light has gone.
AND!! The pads I had brought in ARE THE WRONG SIZE!!

Aaargh!

In the Southerly Latitudes it appears that 314mm front rotors take the larger format pad, and that I should have gone to my local Saab Indie, in the first place!!!

[mikeloadsasaabs]

Sod's law in action I'm afraid 

But at least you found it before you had an accident. You don't mention whether the discs were damaged? I did more or less the same on my old Renault 12 many moons ago, it frightened the wotsit out of me to find the pads nearly at the metal.

The sliding calipers clearly aren't moving properly. You need to clean up the slider rods, and the pad bearing surfaces on the caliper holder. Then use a small amount of copaslip. But you probably know all this 

[sgould]

Just avoid the EBC Greenstuff.  From what I read it's still a low temperature pad suitable for small cars.  On my previous car, they were fitted by a previous owner to keep the dust down.  But they failed and the whole bit of pad material fell off in one go!!  Fortunately I was doing 2 mph uphill at the time on the way to work on Monday morning.  On the Saturday before I had been driving "fast" on the German autobahn 

Pedal straight to floor. Pumping got it back but metal to metal.




The other pads were about to fail too...

[Mark B]

Indeed, avoid EBC Greenstuff at all costs.  Nasty horrid things.

[nine-fiver]

Took the rotors to the local brake place, to get the lip (only 0.5mm) ground back and the surface decked, so the pads wouldn't get wrecked and squeal. They wouldn't touch them. No numbers stamped into the edge of the metal, so no go. Looked to be right on minimum thickness but there was not enough meat left to level them out properly.
So, took them back home, running out of time, popped them on the bench, got out the grinder, put on a lap disc and faired the lip back to the base surface. Reassembled everything, cleaned anything that moved, bled the system, beat the rain, packed up and got it all done by dinner. Hard work but worth it. Bed them in the following morning and let them cool off for a few hours.
Brakes are now excellent, progressive, and quiet.