Bolt came loose and out of the caliper

[siver-SI]

Well today I installed some HP+ pads to go with the fronts I did two weeks ago. I went to chech my front brakes and rotate my tires. When I touched my right front all of a sudden the caliper over the pads moved. I checked the bolt at the bottom of the caliper that you remove to install your pads was gone.

What is weird when I checked over my EP friday before going to autocross it was there and fine. Some how it backed out and I have no idea when. Lucky for me autosone had a bolt kit for the EP for $8 so took anouther car and got it. This time I went around to all of my bolts and put some blue thread lock on it. I do not think any damage was done but it scared the crap out of me. I am huge for checking all my torue specs so I know the bolt was to spec. Thought I would share this for incase one else might have this problem.

[MidnightRacer59]

That really sucks to hear. At least you found the problem before it was too late! :meek: Now things are back to normal and you don't have to worry about it for the auto-x! :mbiggrin:

[thaseint]

Lucky you caught that when you did...a little story of my stupidity.

When doing my 5-lug conversion I'm guessing I missed torquing a single caliper bracket bolt on the rear. I could have sworn everything was torqued to spec. While driving home one day I hear something hit the chassis...figured it was just some random road debris. Then I heard a loud grinding/scraping noise about 5 minutes later...I pulled the car over into a parking lot and inspected everything; but couldn't find the source of the noise which sounded like it was coming from the front. Limped the car home with my hazards driving <30mph while dealing with the loud noise. During this drive I ended up hearing some other metal piece hit my chassis.

When I got the car home I retorqued everything and did a general inspection...when I came to the passenger rear caliper I found that BOTH caliper bracket bolts came out completely! The rotor was fine; but the pad had some uneven wear and the dust shield was a little chewed up. I just drove around with the ebrake up for a mile which evened out the wear on the pad.

I'm glad this was on the rear though...losing 2 caliper bracket bolts on the front would have been pretty bad. The rear at least has the parking brake cable which provided a little bit of support so the caliper didn't just fly off! The front would have probably torn a brake line, possibly some axle damage, among other things.