Michael, I ordered a set of noise-dampening plates along with a couple of sets of caliper rebuild kits from VolksCafe. Note that they don't normally sell these and are doing me a bit of a favor. I think that the dealer is charging them 5 or $6 and they are passing the cost on to me. Very friendly, nice people there. It's kind of a hassle for me to go down to the VW dealer, so I like to order stuff through one of the nice vendors (VolksCafe is local to me, Vanagain, BusDepot, GoWesty are also good known vendors, but further for me). However, you may want to deal with the VW dealer. For me, I like the friendly service I get from non-dealer vendors and I get to "talk vanagon" I have Teves calipers too. After I took off the caliper and cleaned it out with carb cleaner, the squealing stopped. Since I just ordered the noise damping plates and seal kit, I have not installed them yet. My squealing stopped when just an exterior cleaning of the caliper and a good bleeding. Maybe yours will too? I still plan to rebuild the calipers at my leisure. Here is what I did: - took caliper off of vehicle and put it in a plastic bin - shot a whole bunch of carb cleaner over everything several times. Used a small metal tool to pick out pieces of dirt and old anti brake-squeal goop. - used a rag to really clean the rust away from the inside of the piston. - sprayed pads and rotor with brake cleaner - Sanded and lightly polished the pins that go through the brake pads and then greased them lightly with standard lithium grease. (I was thinking that maybe they were preventing proper pad movement evenly). Not sure if the grease will cause problems. - bolted everything back on I was thinking that I would just drive it over the weekend, put up with the squealing and then change change the seals and install new damping plates next week. I primarily took off the piston to give a good check of the brake lines, rotor, and caliper. I didn't expect the exterior cleaning to solve the problem. However, it did. For now. I was planning to give a report to the list after a week to see if this really solved the problem. I installed the caliper last night and then took my orange Westy for a 30 minute test drive up and down a curvy mountain road and heavily used the brakes. I also drove the van to work today and tried all types of stopping - slow, fast, abrupt. So far, so good. However, you know how these things are. Problem may rise up again today or tomorrow. Anyway, since you are in the same situation as me, thought I would share my info now, then report back to the list later on the situation. -- Craig On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 15:35:44 -0700, Michael Rule <manikmike@yahoo.com> wrote: > Ok, so if I am reasonably sure I have Teves/funky 1/3dia-recessed-area pistons in my calipers; and am definitely missing anything resembling a "noise-dampening plate"; and the squeaking is driving me (more?) batty-- > > Can the dampening plates be obtained separately (at this point I'm happy to be dealer-gouged to stop the consistent super-mouse-squeak as nothing else has worked), or are they standard with dealer/List vendor/OEM (whatever brand that may be) brakepads?? > > The pads on there have plenty of life, but I'll replace them in 2 shakes of a squeaky mouse's whiskers if it keeps them quiet (the pads, not the mice). > Cheers, > Mike > > > --------------------------------- > Do you Yahoo!? > Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. > |
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