Can anyone shed light on the root cause of this problem with my 92 liteace diesel ?
My near side front disc brake wears excessively quickly the outer pad. It's only this side of the vehicle.
This set of replacement pads has only 4000 miles and the outer pad has worn back to to the metal.
I,ve had the caliper off and the piston out. Piston appears to be OK. Its not rusted or marked and was given a little copper grease on refiting. It can be pushed back into its hub relatively easily.
The caliper was taken off its pivot pin, both ( pin and hole )were lightly cleaned with abrasive paper, regreased and refitted. Pads were reclipped into their V clips on refitting.
The vehicle does pull to the left ever so slightly, its more like a "drift" rather than a pull.
Tracking was checked and its OK.
Wheel bearing does not appear to have any noticable movement.
Another question would be - What is the clip structure attached to the brake pad outer surface. I assume its a cable tidy for vehicles that can identify brake wear. If so does it matter which way their fited on vehicles without this function.

- (#11912) stephen judge, 22 Nov 03 16:36

Stephen,
the clip you refer to is actually the wear indicator! When the pad wears down, that clip rubs on the disc surface, making a squealing noise.

Now, regarding your wear problem, sounds like the piston etc is OK. You are aware that there are TWO slide pins? The pivot one, AND a tubular one that the retaining bolt goes through... Other than that, do the pads slide easily in their locations?

Another possibility- what about the OTHER caliper? Any chance it's seized, and the l/h one is doing all the work?

Pad life isn't great on these vehicles- I'm not just sure, but I believe I got around 8k out of a set. NEVER had to change the rear shoes tho! Strange that, because the Suzuki now has 24k on it and there's still life in the front pads and it's basically the same weight, it's auto too etc...

- (#11913) david miller, 23 Nov 03 3:22

Stephen. It would appear that this caliper and, possibly, this pad, is doing all the work. You have done a very thorough check but, did you ensure that the guide pins which align the two halves of the caliper, are free and have grease in them? Also, is the offside brake OK or, is there a malfunction there which is putting extra load onto the nearside? However, as you say, there is only a slight pull to the left and I should have thought that this would be more pronounced if the offside brake was seriously under performing

- (#11914) John Davis, 23 Nov 03 3:27

David,
Did'nt realise that the lower ( bolt ) hole on the caliper was actually a slide pin !!
Pads dont't have any noticable movement when the caliper is all bolted up.
John,
Vehicle breaks in a straight line with only a very slight pressure to go left. Was a LOT worse before I had it all apart and greased things.
The break pedal is a little bit spongey though with a fair amount of travel before it feels any way solid ?
Will disassemble and check the bottom bolt.
Many thanks - will keep you informed.

- (#11984) stephen judge, 24 Nov 03 14:20

Is it spongy with the engine off and the servo discharged too? If so, check the slide pins (I'll bet that's the problem) but you might also want to do a fluid change

- (#11985) david miller, 25 Nov 03 2:23