Brake Squeal!!

[71 RAT]

Sorry for the lengthy post, but this has been a long and losing battle.
I installed a Baer Track kit in the front of my 71 Chevelle in 2008, installation was easy and works great. Basicly a C4 Corvette/ mid 90's Ford Cobra system. I started to get and squeal, warm, moderate braking, normal driving. Get on the brakes hard it goes away. Beding and breakin procedure, on a scale of 1-10, I probable would score 8. They have less than 2000 miles, only street driven on dry days. I temporarily disabled the rear brakes, it's in the front and seems to be only th right side. Here's a quick run down of what I tried; Baer pads/originals, chamfer the edges, flat sand with 80 and 180, CRC Brake Quiet # 05016 and Gunk Brake squeal Cure # M725. Wearever ceramic pads, with and wo/ Brake Quiet. Currently running EBC Red Stuff ceramic pads w/ and wo/ Brake quiet. The caliper slides; clean and dry, then with CRC caliper grease. For cleaning, 2 different brands of brake kleen, laquer thinner, prep wash for paint and body work, the rotors were cleaned w/ hot water and Zep cleaner degreaser. The rotors look almost mint, but have been scuffed up with 220 and red Scotch Bright, BG Squeal Stop, G.W.R. kit.
2 calls to Baer, tech wasn't much help, they said get them clean, but couldn't tell me what to use. They suggested getting them hot with some hard brakeing, that seem to make it a little worse, and recomended Some Raybestos pads that were not made an more.
4 Years I've been messing with this, I'm close to replaceing this Baer system with a Kore3 or possibly Wilwood.

[carkrazy1987]

I was once told by a gm engineer that most brake squeek come from vibrations or movements. Threw alil testing of my own on about 100 customer cars I have found that making sure all contact point that the pads touch pad backing, caliper, slides, or retainers to be properly lubricated. I have found that with a light coat of gm anti seize (making sure not to get on friction or rotor surface) I have never had a vehicle squeak or return to me with a squeak. I have even redone other's brake jobs that squeaked the same way and BBC fixed their problem. Maybe give it a try and see if it helps. GL with ur repairsbhope it helps.

[Vegas69]

Brakes squeak, get over it. I've never owned one single car that didn't have sqeaky brakes hear and there. Two friction surfaces rubbing.... Going to the softest pad possible would be your best bet for the most intermittent sqeak.

[Ron in SoCal]

Originally Posted by Vegas69

Brakes squeak, get over it.

Glad you're still slumming here. Wouldn't be the same without you!

[Apogee]

Brake NVH can be caused by a variety of things, so many in fact that you can never eliminate the possibility of noise, but you can do things to minimize it as noted above. A little lube at the metal to metal contact points can go a long way depending on the issue(s) with your application, but may not make any difference too.

Why others with very similar setups are not experiencing what you are makes me think that maybe it's the rotor. You can buy economy C4 HD rotors for $25 to $30 each, so you might consider replacing the right front rotor. The grade of cast iron and metallurgy therein can and will impact the NVH of the system...you can get pretty decent quality rotors for $40-$50 each made from noise dampening iron. I'm pretty sure that your rotors are from the post-DBA era at Baer with respect to who manufactured them, so I can't really guess at the relative quality level.

Tobin
KORE3

[71 RAT]

Thanks for the responses.

All the pads I've tried have been of the "Ceramic" I've used good quality ceramics on 100s of vehicles with out a chirp. I've done some research on this and understand the pad vibrating against the rotor. Weather of the freqency is with the range of the human ear. Maybe a little over simplified!

Lubricants; I have not used GM antiseize, 3or4 specifiically for for disc brakes, even between the rotor and hub.

Softer pad; would an organic pad be softer? I did think about going to something more agressive like, Hawk HPS.

Rotors; that has been sugested. Are all the quality rotors make with damening iron.

[Vegas69]

The BP30's my Wilwoods came with orignally were the least noisy, and they had by far the worst braking performance as well. When I stepped it up to a Carbotech they squeaked like crazy. The Hawk HP Plus were somewhere in the middle.

I daily drive a base model C6 Vette and the bone stock brake pads squeak quite often.

The least agressive pads you can buy will squeak the least.