I did the following a while ago, and the brakes a week ago, but I have been away from here:
So to copy and paste from elsewhere...
The story was left with my car going to BTM Performance to have its cambelt change undertaken. Whilst it was there the dephaser rattle was picked out almost straight away. It did not sound as bad as some of the YouTube videos in all honesty. Out of all of them it probably sounded like this one albeit quieter, at least to me anyway:
I thought, well, hoped that it may have been a tensioner until Fred confirmed my suspicions. A couple of days later and my car had a new dephaser, and new belts with pulleys. Sure enough the car seems to be alot quieter now!
At the time it was noted that whilst the car was a very clean example the cam timing was slightly out from the last specialist that did the work (no, it was not K-Tec, but a very well respected Clio Sport specialist). Whether they used a dial gauge to check TDC is still debatable. That said the car does seem slightly torquier lower down (not much though!) and the top end may have a little more of a kick, but nothing to shout home about. Naturally this could all be in my mind after such an expense! OTOH with the oil being changed as a result of the dephaser swap I should not need to service it for a year or so given that I only gave it a full service a month or 2 beforehand.
As a treat for the car I decided to see what power this car kicked out. With this decided off I headed with some Clio Sport.net peeps to a rolling road in Bidford on Avon.
This was the result:
159BHP at the wheels. Not a bad figure for a 172. The lowest figure was 149BHP for a stock 172 with the 182 all making what mine was oddly enough give or take 1BHP. The highest figure (albeit by 2 BHP!) was by a 172 Cup with a K-Tec exhaust and Sports cat, and IMO a remap.
I knew why the car went so well! What I did know also what that the car did not stop so well! Upon pressing the pedal I was greeted by faint grinding noises yet the brake pads had plenty of life and the discs on the face of it looked almost new! It did however have an advisory for the MOT stating that the discs 'looked worn, grooved or scored, but not seriously weakened' and it did also pass the brake test with no real inbalance. High speed braking also required commitment; I remember Fred @BTM saying that my brakes were shocking! Before I ended up rear ending somebody (easy!) they did require attention swifly.
Off I went and puchased a new set of discs and pads whilst getting together some familiar lubes (no, not like that!) for the job:
Discs? Check
Pads? Check
Brake Grease? Check
Copper Grease? Check
New sliding plates? Check (not necessary, but read on...)
With the a simple external inspection everything looked fine:
Even after removal things looked rosy. Why am I changing these again?
Ah, maybe not?
In places the discs on the inside had worn the grooves down almost flush. A 2mm step had formed within the mid circumference of the braking area.
Take a guess as to which pads were the inner pads on the car...
But hang on, these brakes are nearly new and with not so shoddy parts including Brembo Max discs and Ferodo pads! What could cause this?
There are many reasons why this is said to happen. Some specialists say that the inner pads seized into the carrier causing the above, often saying to remove the anti rattle plates so as to prevent it. This was something I was keen to avoid so as to not have pads clunking about, this is my daily after all. On the other hand I did not wish to have the same problem happen again!
I have never been a fan of copper grease on sliding surfaces finding that it can congeal (indeed, the sliders seemed to have brake dust and gunk on them. Brake grease in these applications however seems to have worked for me in the past. This is a controversial topic so as Columbo (RIP) said, I'll say one more thing on it.
Here is one of the 2 sticking sliders I removed with traces of the good ol' copper grease:
Where I do use copper grease however is for hub faces and fixings, so as to prevent seizing
.
I also noticed that there was some corrosion present (well, slight rusting) on the carriers below the plates. I know that on most pre '95 Brembo 4 pots 'plate lift' is a big problem causing pads to seize in. Maybe this is often an overlooked area.
With a wire attachment on drill, followed by some 240 grit sandpaper the surface was smooth once more. To safeguard it I put some Etch primer onto the bare surfaces followed by brake grease. When it came to install the new sliding plates & pads with the aforementioned grease on the sliding surfaces the pads were definitely free to move about on the plates, far moreso than the old pads.
After that it was time to refit everything:
Whilst the pads took some time to bed in they do work very well now! I am pleased that the car can come to a stop under its own steam!
For those of you who have not fallen asleep there was one thing left to do on the car ; regas the AC. This has never worked under my ownership. So off the car went to an AC specialist I have previously used. After performing the vacuum test (and finding 50g worth of stuff in there) there were surprisingly no leaks detected (or major in the guy's words in terms of what a vacuum test can do). After which the car was regassed. It is great to have the AC back working in the car for sure!
In all these first few months have not been the cheapest but I have also seen to a couple of issues that should not plague the car again with any luck
. There are one or two more things left to attend to (reversing switch and headlight restoration) but for now they can wait
.
Thanks for reading.
[footnote]Edited by SebringMan on Saturday 6th June 09:50[/footnote]
