Front end rattle

[djorkboy]

My Bora has a rattling sound from the front end whenever driving over bumpy roads etc. It's a 'tinny' sort of rattle, like a loose heatshield or something, doesn't sound like a suspension bush type noise (and I just had all my worn bushes replaced 2 weeks ago).

The noise stops as soon as any real pressure is put on the brakes, if you just lightly ride the brake pedal you can still hear the rattle but as soon as the pedal is pressed the noise stops instantly.

I had a Jeep with a front brake caliper that had a broken bolt which made the bottom of the caliper loose until the pedal was pressed and it made the exact same sound but I can't see anything astray in the brakes on the Bora.

Anyone seen this before?

[grtuned]

I've never heard of caliper pin rattles on the vee dubs!! some japanese cars had this rattle and to stop it they used a special caliper pin grease to stop the noise. But you can clean the caliper bracket with screw driver you will get build up of dust and apply some copper grease where the caliper assy will slide on the bracket also put small amount on the Pads edges where they come into contact and slide with the caliper bracket try this and see how it go's...

[Adzismad2]

My Bora has a rattling sound from the front end whenever driving over bumpy roads etc. It's a 'tinny' sort of rattle, like a loose heatshield or something, doesn't sound like a suspension bush type noise (and I just had all my worn bushes replaced 2 weeks ago).

The noise stops as soon as any real pressure is put on the brakes, if you just lightly ride the brake pedal you can still hear the rattle but as soon as the pedal is pressed the noise stops instantly.

I had a Jeep with a front brake caliper that had a broken bolt which made the bottom of the caliper loose until the pedal was pressed and it made the exact same sound but I can't see anything astray in the brakes on the Bora.

Anyone seen this before?

I had the EXACT thing on my 4mo

Turned out to be the brake pad itself, rattling around inside the caliper. It used to completely go away under any sort of brakes and sometimes it would cause my brakes to squeal a lot.

My mech put the car on the hoist and found exactly which wheel it was coming from, took out the pad, applied some special brake silicon looking material to the pad and the noise was completely gone. This was at the start of the year.

Adam.

[djorkboy]

So I pulled the wheel off and had a look. The inside pad of the driver's side is not sitting flush against the disk like the others are, it has a couple of mm gap, enough to be able to move it and make the noise.

Looks like the caliper pins are not lubricated much at all and are pretty dusty so I got some copper grease (well, it's a synthetic version of copper grease, they didn't have anything else) and will follow the advice and pull the caliper off and see if I can get things properly lubricated.

The only annoying thing is the caliper appears to be held on with 18mm bolts and guess which spanner is missing from my toolbox?

Thanks for the info guys, you both appear to be spot on. I'll post again when it's done and let you know the outcome.

[grtuned]

The caliper is held on with two 7mm Allen key bolts and the caliper mounting bracket is held on with the bolts that your talking about you may not need to take the bracket off only the caliper to lubricate and clean..

[djorkboy]

I ended up taking the bracket off, and got a nice set of ratchet spanners to do it with I hesitated at the $60 price for the set of 6 but when I got to the counter they scanned as $39.

I pulled everything apart, cleaned it all a bit (wish I had thought to buy some brake cleaner, but I just wiped it all down with a clean rag) and lubricated the caliper slides and put some on the pads too, put it back together and it all seems much better, even without driving the car at all the inside pad is now flush and won't rattle so as soon as the rain eases I will take it out for a drive and see if I can hear the rattle (can't hear it very well in the rain as there is too much road noise).

Another thing I noticed is that where the inside pad fixes to the piston with three clips they were very loose, it pretty much fell out, so I bent the pins back a bit and now it clicks into place so even if there is a gap it will have less opportunity to rattle.

Thanks for the advice guys.

[governor22]

I also have an annoying rattle (only heard over potholes or imperfections in the road).... mechanic thought it might be the heatshield too, so tightened it up but still made the noise. Then said it could be a split in a bush, but if it's just the brake pad i'll take it back in and get them to check it out.

cheers for this djork

[djorkboy]

I did a bit of a road test this afternoon and the noise is 90% gone. Before it was there on any bump in the road but now I have to drive over a few reflectors or a pothole etc. before it will rattle.

So at least I now know where the problem was and can drive the car without worrying that something is about to fall off I was stupid to not get some brake cleaner, when the rain stops I'll get some and give the whole lot a proper clean then grease it all up, hopefully that will get rid of the rattle for good.

I wonder if this sort of problem is caused by the amazing brake pad life these cars seem to have? Because the pads don't get changed as often there is more of a buildup of dust between pad changes?