[DeTomaso] NPC - Brake Question - NPC

[David_Bell at oxy.com]

Actually, uneven pad wear from floating calipers is often what you've
described.  The pad attached to the floating mechanism is the one that
tends to stick, especially if the sliders get dirty or corroded or the
grease just gets washed off.  The brake hydraulics have plenty of oomph
to force the pads on both sides to contact the rotor equally when
braking.  But if the floating mechanism sticks, that pad tends not to
move completely away from the rotor when pedal pressure is released.  So
the pad on the floating side of the caliper continues to drag along
against the rotor.  The extra rubbing adds up over the life of the pad
so one side ends up thinner than the other.
Cleaning and greasing (with special high-temp caliper grease) the
caliper sliders should mostly take care of the uneven pad wear.

Dave Bell

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"I would assume that the increased wear is on the side of the caliper
that has the piston." 
Thanks Mike, 
The pads on the piston side are the thicker ones. Opposite side is
wearing more. That is why I was curious about the wear pattern.
Everything is different than what I have seen in the past. I suspect
that you may be right about this just being the nature of the beast.
Interesting note..... I had exactly ZERO opinions offered on the S2K
forum. Maybe their service is done by the dealers? Most of their posts
seem to deal with ricer mods or catastrophic failures. I suspect Pantera
owners actually work on cars. Interesting note# 2......Dealer never took
the shipping blocks out of the front springs. Amazing how much it
reduced the understeer when I removed them. Would you believe they were
still there after 5 years and 65,000 miles? 
Jim -----
Original Message----- From: MikeLDrew at aol.com
<http://ftl.realbig.com/mailman/listinfo/detomaso>  [mailto:HYPERLINK
"http://ftl.realbig.com/mailman/listinfo/detomaso"MikeLDrew at aol.com
<mailto:HYPERLINK> ] Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 5:35 AM To: chendric
at bellsouth.net <http://ftl.realbig.com/mailman/listinfo/detomaso> ;
detomaso at realbig.com
<http://ftl.realbig.com/mailman/listinfo/detomaso>  Subject: Re:
[DeTomaso] NPC - Brake Question - NPC In a message dated 6/27/06
10:40:23, chendric at bellsouth.net
<http://ftl.realbig.com/mailman/listinfo/detomaso>  writes: 
<< The outboard pads are wearing more than the inboard pads. Wear
appears equal at all four wheels - about 5/16" left on the inboard pad
and about 3/16" left on the outboard. Is this normal? It has single
piston calipers. Cars that I have had in the past wore out 2 sets of
front brakes to one set of rear and the inboard pad wearing faster
indicated a stuck caliper. I have never seen the outboard pads wear
faster. >> 
>>>I have seen uneven brake wear with single-piston calipers before. In
fact I used to occasionally swap the pads around to put the thicker one
where the thinner one had been to equalize wear. Given that all four of
your calipers are showing identical wear patterns, I suspect it is
simply the nature of the beast. I would assume that the increased wear
is on the side of the caliper that has the piston. I would further
assume that this is caused by some sort of binding/dragging where the
caliper is supposed to slide in the housing, and thus judicious
lubrication may be called for. 
Mike