Its very possible those pads wont have as good of a bite as factory. You will need to bed-in the new pads for the best results.

 

One thing I realized today. Before changing the pads, the car would move/shift when the ebrake is let off. Now with these new pads, I disengaged the e-brake and car did not budge at all in the garage an inch like it always did before.

I had to move the car back some, it for sure feels like the brakepads are dragging onto the rotor a little bit. Will this be of any harm? Or should I just keep on driving the car till the pads aren't so close/touchy to the rotors?

As stated before, I did use both factory shims which lay on top of the current shims that these pads came with. I attempted to pry the Wagner shims off but it felt like they cemented it on there, I wanted to install these pads without the factory shims but read that noise will be problem without running them.

Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. - Vinh

 

Get a blade and/or flathead and get to it if you want the shims off. Running 2 extra shims isn't helping anything.

 

It's alot harder than you think, I'm just considering removing the two factory shims atop this current pad and seeing how that goes. My only concern is if brake squeal arises

 

problem solved

 

I doubt Wagner pads will make noise. I'd slip the factory shims out and see if it makes any noise. If not, put the shims in a box and save them for your next brake job.

Was the pedal feel related to the pad type.

Or when you bled the brakes did it get better?

 

When I test drove the car after removing the factory shims from the brakepads I did encounter some noise from the driver front brakes. I went ahead and re-greased it, will find out if that will solve the problem. Only thing I noted different is that I cleaned off the brake holder guides that make contact to the top surface of the brakepads ONLY on the driver front. And by doing so I removed the old grease which kept it quiet, take in mind that is just my assumption

Pedal feel was horrible due to the fact I crammed the brakepads back in with all those shims, in doing so it made the brakepads touch the rotors as if I was pressing the brakes. By removing the stock shims, my theory of the brake pedal feel returning to normal came to fruition.

When I bled the brakes with all those shims in there it did not help any with bringing back that old pedal feel. Only way I got that old/stock pedal feel was by removing those factory shims and only running the one shim that was supplied/cemented on the Wagners.

 

sounds like all those shims acted like a sponge that had to be squeezed before the pads would move.

 

More like all the shims didn't allow a paper thin amount of play in the pads, thus creating a braking pressure without applying the brakes. Think cramming two quarters through the vending machine at same time

 

how?

 

Agreed, how would decreasing the space between the pad and rotor lead to longer pedal travel before brake engagement?

 

how? think Anti-knockback springs on the wrong side of the pistons.