Ok I don't do this for a living, just my own stuff. But that has added up to a lot of brake jobs over the years.

New to me 2010 Silverado, 115k miles. Looks like original rear brakes. Pads disintegrating, and uneven, and a chunk out of one rotor. How we can't feel it in the truck I don't know. Stops fine.

So new rotors and pads. Everything came apart nicely. Pads were tight in the slides. Ok whatever.
Go to put the new pads in, and really tight in the slides. Cleaned the slides/shims up shiny and took emery cloth to the mounts under the slides. Still super tight. Old pads are still super tight too. I end up breaking a pad trying to get it in there. Well, that was stupid.

So what is causing new and old pads to fit so tightly? Do I need to take more material off the slide mounts? Do I need to remove material from the pad ears? I'm used to these things barely holding themselves in.

You can do it either way. You can take the slides off and clean the rust that has built up under the slides(preferred method) pads should have come with new slides. Or you can take the material off of the pads just be careful not to remove too much. Either way the pad must slide freely. The higher quality pad will be more precisely made to make installation easier.

quote:

Originally posted by 369dragster:
You can do it either way. You can take the slides off and clean the rust that has built up under the slides(preferred method) pads should have come with new slides. Or you can take the material off of the pads just be careful not to remove too much. Either way the pad must slide freely. The higher quality pad will be more precisely made to make installation easier.

This is a ceramic pad, but not a high cost one. Had great luck with these on my other truck. (certainly not an endorsement of their overall quality control.) But one thing is that this set doesn't come with new slides. Very strange to me. But these cleaned up surprisingly nice. I'm not sure taking more material off the mounts will help greatly. The slides sit all the way down flush it seems after emery clothing under them. Maybe I just wasn't aggressive enough and need to take a bit more. And touch up the pads too. It struck me as strange that what might have been the original pads were tight, and I can't get them in easily either. That lends itself to the pads not being the issue.
Thank you for responding. I need all the help I can get. LOL

Like 396 said its either rust build up under the slide or the new pads. I have noticed (doing many brake jobs for a living) that allot of after market companies the paint/powder coating on the new pad slide area are really thick and this becomes a problem. If you have the slide clean and flat under the cover over the slide then the issue is in the pad.

I find several time where as you have to use a file. Clean the notch. Some of these pads have real thick PC like he stated. I had a jeep where i couldn't get the pads back in place for the life of me. After 2 sets. Backing was too big.

Hello off to the grinder they go on the ends. Fit better than OE.

I recently put new rear pads in my truck. Purchased ceramic with new SS hardware. I removed the caliper mounts and scrubbed everything clean in a vise. I could not easily assemble the pads into the holder even with brake pad grease.

I cleaned the old pad mounting notches and measured the length of the old pads with a veneer. The new pads were almost 0.020 wider and not cut straight in the corners. I filed the pad notches straight and to the exact same length as the oem’s. Slide right in.

I took some off the pad backing so they went right in on my truck.

Welcome to today's world of auto repair

Hey Mr Bender. Being in the repair business since the age of dinosaurs. lol. What may i ask what was the very worst job / incident you have experienced
in all your years? Aside from throwing tools?

ME lol. Working a little Mercury Capri finishing up on the belt job. I tell the BIL to click it over while I'm under the hood. He reaches in, clicks the key. Darn thing fires up, still in reverse. Car goes to high idle and Bam there she goes through the bay door. Jumps 2 lanes of traffic, jumps the small median and tags a car in the south bound lanes. That IS a bad day.

The one day one of my younger employees somehow, some way, hits the hold up alarm in the back room. We had 3 locations with buttons. Must of been 20 squad cars out there. You are surrounded
Come out with your hands up. What in Theeee ***.

^^^^^^ LOL

quote:

Originally posted by TD3550:
Hey Mr Bender. Being in the repair business since the age of dinosaurs. lol. What may i ask what was the very worst job / incident you have experienced
in all your years? Aside from throwing tools?

ME lol. Working a little Mercury Capri finishing up on the belt job. I tell the BIL to click it over while I'm under the hood. He reaches in, clicks the key. Darn thing fires up, still in reverse. Car goes to high idle and Bam there she goes through the bay door. Jumps 2 lanes of traffic, jumps the small median and tags a car in the south bound lanes. That IS a bad day.

The one day one of my younger employees somehow, some way, hits the hold up alarm in the back room. We had 3 locations with buttons. Must of been 20 squad cars out there. You are surrounded
Come out with your hands up. What in Theeee ***.

The one that stands out is not really a bad job or incident but one or two that were very funny.

In my younger days I would do what I call a "Rockford slide" on the two lane street in front of our shop. I would go 25-30 MPH in reverse, whip the wheel to one side and soon as the front end slid around, slap in in drive straighten the wheel and drive off forward in the same direction. Was pretty dramatic and fun to do. One day I did this with a customers car right in front the shop, because I thought he had left the car for us to fix his brake problem. As it turns out he was still waiting for his ride home and was standing in the garage door opening to the shop. As the front swung around all I saw was him standing there with his eyes the size of pie plates watching his car do a half loop on the street. Keep in mind the shop was only 10' from the street. I was very concerned going back to the shop, but the first thing he said was he was so glad that he brought his car in to get the brakes fixed because he didn't want that happening to him.

The other one was very funny, a customer had a old Chevy II towed in because it wouldn't start the car was probably 20 years old at the time. The wrecker dropped it in such a way the I had to climb in the passenger side because the drivers side was too close to the fence to open the door. I was able to get it running by holding the pedal to the floor because it was flooded from the choke being stuck. I was just able to keep it running enough to drive it in the shop chugging all the way. Once I got it in the shop I was revving it up to get it cleared out. Evidently it had been running very rich for quite some time, because it was belching out black like a current day modded diesel. After about a minute it finally was cleared out enough to idle on it's own. Our small shop was so filled with black smoke the you literally couldn't see from one end to the other, me and my brother were laughing about this pretty good already, but the best was yet to come. I finally shut it off and went to get out, when I pulled the door handle to open the drivers door the door just completely fell off on the floor because the hinges were broken off. We were just cracking up about the whole deal....good times!

quote:

Originally posted by Bucky:
Ok I don't do this for a living, just my own stuff. But that has added up to a lot of brake jobs over the years.

New to me 2010 Silverado, 115k miles. Looks like original rear brakes. Pads disintegrating, and uneven, and a chunk out of one rotor. How we can't feel it in the truck I don't know. Stops fine.

So new rotors and pads. Everything came apart nicely. Pads were tight in the slides. Ok whatever.
Go to put the new pads in, and really tight in the slides. Cleaned the slides/shims up shiny and took emery cloth to the mounts under the slides. Still super tight. Old pads are still super tight too. I end up breaking a pad trying to get it in there. Well, that was stupid.

So what is causing new and old pads to fit so tightly? Do I need to take more material off the slide mounts? Do I need to remove material from the pad ears? I'm used to these things barely holding themselves in.

Possible that you bracket is warped? I had to replace two on my truck for this reason.

Suck it up and buy the GM pads

quote:

Originally posted by head gamez:

quote:

Originally posted by Bucky:
Ok I don't do this for a living, just my own stuff. But that has added up to a lot of brake jobs over the years.

New to me 2010 Silverado, 115k miles. Looks like original rear brakes. Pads disintegrating, and uneven, and a chunk out of one rotor. How we can't feel it in the truck I don't know. Stops fine.

So new rotors and pads. Everything came apart nicely. Pads were tight in the slides. Ok whatever.
Go to put the new pads in, and really tight in the slides. Cleaned the slides/shims up shiny and took emery cloth to the mounts under the slides. Still super tight. Old pads are still super tight too. I end up breaking a pad trying to get it in there. Well, that was stupid.

So what is causing new and old pads to fit so tightly? Do I need to take more material off the slide mounts? Do I need to remove material from the pad ears? I'm used to these things barely holding themselves in.

Possible that you bracket is warped? I had to replace two on my truck for this reason.

Well I can't see anything obvious. But that doesn't mean they aren't.

Manufacturer sent replacements.

SF: What is so good about the gm pads? Is there a site that evaluates them? Does GM make pads? I'm not sure that just because the stealership sells them that they are what came on the truck originally.

quote:

Originally posted by Bucky:
SF: What is so good about the gm pads?

They fit correctly and they work correctly.

quote:

Originally posted by SlyFox:

quote:

Originally posted by Bucky:
SF: What is so good about the gm pads?

They fit correctly and they work correctly.

Nothing is going to fit correctly because there is a build up of rust under the steel slides. Sometimes I just whack it with a hammer and the rust comes off in chunks. It will look smooth but you can tell there is build up there if the rust transfers to the bottom of the shim. I use a hammer to chip it off and the a 2” robocall or sanding disc to get it to bare metal.

quote:

Originally posted by head gamez:

quote:

Originally posted by Bucky:
Ok I don't do this for a living, just my own stuff. But that has added up to a lot of brake jobs over the years.

New to me 2010 Silverado, 115k miles. Looks like original rear brakes. Pads disintegrating, and uneven, and a chunk out of one rotor. How we can't feel it in the truck I don't know. Stops fine.

So new rotors and pads. Everything came apart nicely. Pads were tight in the slides. Ok whatever.
Go to put the new pads in, and really tight in the slides. Cleaned the slides/shims up shiny and took emery cloth to the mounts under the slides. Still super tight. Old pads are still super tight too. I end up breaking a pad trying to get it in there. Well, that was stupid.

So what is causing new and old pads to fit so tightly? Do I need to take more material off the slide mounts? Do I need to remove material from the pad ears? I'm used to these things barely holding themselves in.

Possible that you bracket is warped? I had to replace two on my truck for this reason.

How did you know they were warped?

quote:

Originally posted by Bucky:

quote:

Originally posted by head gamez:

quote:

Originally posted by Bucky:
Ok I don't do this for a living, just my own stuff. But that has added up to a lot of brake jobs over the years.

New to me 2010 Silverado, 115k miles. Looks like original rear brakes. Pads disintegrating, and uneven, and a chunk out of one rotor. How we can't feel it in the truck I don't know. Stops fine.

So new rotors and pads. Everything came apart nicely. Pads were tight in the slides. Ok whatever.
Go to put the new pads in, and really tight in the slides. Cleaned the slides/shims up shiny and took emery cloth to the mounts under the slides. Still super tight. Old pads are still super tight too. I end up breaking a pad trying to get it in there. Well, that was stupid.

So what is causing new and old pads to fit so tightly? Do I need to take more material off the slide mounts? Do I need to remove material from the pad ears? I'm used to these things barely holding themselves in.

Possible that you bracket is warped? I had to replace two on my truck for this reason.

How did you know they were warped?

To be honest, I didn’t. However, I tried all the things you are and couldn’t get them to slide freely. I decided to replace them and they were a pain to get off... like all the way to the last thread needing a ratchet. New ones went on easy and pads slid right on.

I never measured them or really looked to see if they were warped. I just assumed by the way they came off they were.

quote:

Originally posted by 369dragster:
The higher quality pad will be more precisely made to make installation easier.

Like I said - buy the GM pads...

Well, as I mentioned, I have some confidence that these that were coming out were the original gm pads. And they fit just like the ones I was trying to install. Plus, you can line old and new pads up back to back, and see absolutely no difference.

The bracket bolts up fine. There was a good amount of rust, which I removed. I ended up going full custom to complete the job, since I had no access to new brackets in a timely manner. I took a flat file to the flat part of the slide. Took a while because I didn't want to remove too much and make the pad fit sloppy. Did a little touch up on the pad as well, and they hold themselves in, but can slide easily.
I suspect there is something going on with the bracket. But they are in there square and fitting well now. Nobody would have made money on that brake job with the time it took.

Thank you all for the input.