Grumpy Now!!

[SeanW]

As the title suggests...I'm grumpy now!!

Decided to pop out and have a nebski at the car today - in particular the brakes. Dawned on me that they're potentially all original factory fitted parts & I've never looked at them.

Decided to replace anyway, the front pads are probably at just under half-original thickness, discs have maybe worn down by under 1mm (so not too bad, there is 2mm to play with and they only very light scoring to the face). Rears - similar story with the meat on the shoes and the drums look ugly (surface corrosion) so I'll change those too. However, I was hoping to do it a month apart - spread the cost a bit

That's not the problem...was expecting to be at least replacing pads/shoes and was tempted to do discs/drums for peace of mind.

What I wasn't expecting to find, however: Leaky rear NS shock absorber and excessive wear on the inside edge of the front tyres. I've attached piccies below.

Soo - dear Forum Folk...and the reason I've posted in the General Ford section

Ford/Motorcraft or aftermarket? If aftermarket what are your recommendations?

Also, does anyone else know why it's so hard to find drums for a Mk2.5 Focus (query same as Transit Connect drums)?

However, small victory - managed to get my mudguards fitted - I'll whack up a guide in the next few days!!

[Andy.B1971]

PAGID pads and discs are superb quality they also do the drums (euro car parts) , Fitted some to an M3 today cross drilled very nice.

So that tyre is toeing OUT causing the inner wear, is there any wear on the rear tyres ? in order for the front wheels to be set up correctly the rears must be correct as that's where the front relate from !!!!

Lower arm rear bush going home can also cause the tyre to wear like that (common problem).

unless your drums are damaged/scored they probably wont need replacing UNLESS they have exceeded the maximum diameter....

[SeanW]

The picture of the tyres above says it all really - they're both NS tyres (OS look very similar in comparison).

Left tyre is the front, and you can see the excessive wear along the inner edge. Tyre on the right is the rear and is showing very even wear across the full width of the tyre.

I did look at the bushes, but there didn't appear to be any excessive play in them - that and the NS one was replaced 2 years ago whereas the OS is original (post-accident rebuild). If they were to blame I'd expect the OS to exhibit more wear in the inner edge, but it's almost a perfect mirror image, so I think it might just be that they need toeing in a smidge.

The drums look to be okay, didn't take them off though. My main reason for wanting to swap those is because I'm too lazy to clean them up before painting them :p (and in for a penny, in for a pound...or many, many pounds lol).

I know Pagid used to (maybe still do) manufacture OEM braking components for Fiat. I just can't find the drums on t'interweb (except eBay with questionable brand names and listings).

[SeanW]

Actually, I've just looked at the photos I took earlier, and by the looks of it I've still got a good 3.5-4mm of life in the front pads with another 1.5mm of life in the discs (there's no major scoring or pitting). And down back, probably around 3mm in the shoes, and the drums appear to be in good working order, if a little ugly looking.

Might just leave the brakes until summer (short of any major dramas) when it's warm, and I don't mind cracking on with it.

However, tomorrow, I will be popping to a garage to get my tracking checked and have my bushes inspected - get a professional opinion & quote

[Andy.B1971]

hopefully you had your geometry checked on either a hunter or john bean setup ....what was the result ?

when you do the brakes don't forget Delphi, Brakeworld, lucus, blueprint, Boschto name but a few.

[SeanW]

I haven't yet, I'm going to get the bushes inspected tomorrow morning, and hopefully get tyres & tracking done at the same time. I know of one Hunter setup in town, but I'm not impressed with the results!! The ex had her Fiesta done there and it came out worse!! (Had a slight pull to the right when it went in and quite a tug to the right on leaving).

[RAIDER32]

The next time I need new discs & pads I'll be buying original Ford's,

When I got my 2009 Focus last year, the dealer had it fitted with aftermarket discs & pads,

after a week it developed a thumping/knocking noise under breaking (mainly the first part of journeys)

I returned it to the guys who did the work, they had a look and thought it was sorted, but it started again next day.

I wasn't going back over to Bradford, so took it over the road to my local but they couldn't find fault,

funny enough though, when I got it back it never made that noise again.

I read into it, and found that noise can be created by Non-Ford Pads that don't fit quite as well,

but the fact it stopped after my garage looked at it might suggest something was incorrectly fitted first time.

[SeanW]

Sounds more likely that something was wrong with the original fitting of them then.

I'm hopefully dropping the car in for the rear shocks to be done and bushes checked later today