Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Hi

Can anyone help me with info regarding my squealing front brakes? I nearly brought the whole of London to a standstill last w/end!

Local garage tell me that one piston is seized solid (I think that's what he said) - new caliper may be required which sounds expensive. I'm not a mechanic but there must be ways round these things. Any advice would be welcomed.

Cheers

I would be suprised if one of the pistons is seized solid as the brakes would be binding on. Have you jacked the car up and tested the wheel for drag?

Squeeling brakes can often be helped/cured by using copper grease on the pads. Suggest taking a look at the general condition of pads,discs and calipers before rushing into anything.

Paul

As Paul said copaslip on the bake of the pads often helps. Which model of Pork is is if it's an early one then it is single piston callipers & they are notorious for seizing on the slides. Freeing up the callipers is a matter of lubing the slides & tapping them backwards & forwards but the last ones I did needed a big 'ammer & taking the calliper off & pads out.
Exchange early callipers are around 70 quid each so not a fortune.Whereabouts are you?

Hi

Thanks to you both for such early and informative replies. The car is a 1991 S2 and I'm based in Salisbury. I'll print out your advice and take it in to the garage. They're a reliable and knowledgeable outfit so I'm assuming that they are doing the best on my behalf but it never hurts to show that I'm on the case!

Cheers and thanks again

Andrew

If it's an S2 then the comments about the slides doesn't apply. Sounds to me like the pads need pulling & copasliping if they haven't got the porsche fitting kit on. The other thing is the Porsche pads are very hard, good for long life but bad for noise. I've ground the sharp corners of the pad off in the past & this has helped. It may also be a build up of dust & crud as well.

all sounds like postive stuff....i reckon the cleaning and relubing option is by far the best one...

Not sure on the S2 but my calipers are all one pot and the 2 halves needed some serious messing and copper grease to get them floating nicely. A rubber mallet is useful !

My specific problem was the side without the piston was stuck on ...one fairly hot disc ! I now touch my discs...with caution...to see they are all same/similar temperature...

Its a real pain that this will happen on most cars that are not run regualrly...my BMW does it...reasulting in uneven wear and clicking when you brake...still stops though.

The S2 has the same callipers as my 968. The pads sit on stainless steel plates which sit against the alloy of the calliper. Over time the alloy corrodes and the oxide pushes the plate forward and jams the pad in position. This is the origin of the term "plate lift" (AMHIK!).
The solution is to remove the calliper and take the plates off to clean off the corrosion from underneath. The difficulty with that is that the screws holding the plates require an allen key to remove them, so they tend to round off fairly easily and they were Loctited in when they were built!

I bought a spare set off Ebay and had them refurbished by Car Tech and Care in Northallerton so that they were ready to go straight onto the car.

Sorry I'm late on this - I had squeely brakes on my 944S2 when I bought it 2 years ago. It had recent new discs & pads all around (and bills to prove .... all good stuff ), but on investigation it didn't have anti-squeel pads !! They were a bit of a pig to fit, as there is an adhesive side to stick to the pad and a cone shaped spring that centres into the pistons. The set cost around £40 form Porsch-Apart. I can now brake to my hearts content and the "peace" is heaven !! Now the wheels go black very quickly with the pad dust !!!!

That is why I use EBC Greens, the pads don't produce anything like the same amount of dust & what there is cleans off easy.