2005 F-250 6.0 4x4.

After about 50,000 miles on my original brakes, they started to make a squealing noise when applying moderate brake pressure and slowing down around 30mph-0mph. It only happens after Ive driven the truck about 30 mins. It must be warmed up. After 100,000 I decided to change the brakes.....they had plenty of life left on them, but I changed them anyway. I put on new rotors and pads and calipers in the front because one was hanging. After about 10,000 miles, the exact same squeal has returned. With the windows down, its loud enough to physically hurt your ears if you are next to a car and the sound can bounce back into the cab. It sounds terrible. I thought it was the front brakes, so I took them apart this weekend to put in some Disc Brake Quiet. They pads look great, plenty left, the rotors look great, no grooves. Everything is tight. I relubed pins and brackets and clips. Today...same squeal still. Im at a complete loss here. It is some sort of harmonic squeal and the only thing I can figure is that the rears are the culprit. I have a drivers rear caliper that will hang and stick if you drive it really hard, so Im considering replacing the rear calipers too and do the disc brake quiet treatment there as well. Im not confident this will solve the problem.

Like I said, its so loud you can't drive with the windows down. Its a piercing squeal. Is there anything else that I can check? I can't imagine others don't do this. Its so loud and pronounced that it must be some sort of design flaw or something. anyone have any ideas?

 

There can be several issues that are causing that.....the most common is a hard brake lining that dust builds up under the pad and the squeal occurs. Another typical/common issue is the anti squeal shims...they are very thin today as compared to 20 years ago.....make a trip to the local hardware store or steel supplier and purchase a piece of stainless steel....20 to 22 gauge and fab up your own shims using the oem pieces as patterns....of course, also use disc brake anti squeak goop too.

These shims will be about 40% thicker than oem and being stainless, actually much more resistant to vibrations because of the stiffness of the material.

 

Im not sure what a 'lining' is but these pads have less than 10000 miles....so, pretty much new. There are no 'shims' behnd these pads. They are thermoquiets, and it looks like there is a piece of steel riveted to the back of the pad, so Im assuming that is the shim? Anyway...Ill have to take this apart and see what it looks like back there.....again.

 

Lining is the brake material that is attached to the metal plates/shoes.

Mileage means nothing...

Wagner is a low grade product line, typically made in China...IMHO, I would avoid like the plague along with Raybestos.

looks like there is a piece of steel riveted to the back of the pad, so Im assuming that is the shim...no ...the anti squeal shims are thin pieces of metal that are the same shape as the brake pads where the lining is attached.

I really appreciate theat you are trying to fix a problem and really appreciate your desire & effort to jump in...but I really think that you should have someone sitting with you in person to do this.

 

I'm going to disagree with Wagner and low quality. This is t a race truck. She doesn't need slotted rotors and 100 dollar pairs of pads. In the end it's just a squeal. It's the same squeal it had when it had factory pads on it. It's unrelated to the pad and rotor directly. I've done the brakes on all four of my vehicles since new. This is the only one that has ever squealed. I'm not interested in some schmuck at a shop with no more education than myself charging an arm and a leg to do a job that's will result in the same end product. This is just a brake job. It's not rocket science. I just need to work out a squeal. Lol.

I take the rears apar and replace the calipers while I'm there since I know they hang sometimes. I'll check for debris around the ebrake and out some brake quiet on the pad backing plate. These pads require no shims.

 

This is nonsense.

 

Ag-ford,

Sometimes it's hard to differentiate between front and rear noise. I've even had experienced test drivers thinking there noise was from the front when the instrumentation documented it was from the rear. Not that I know for sure this is your situation, but it's a really good idea to have someone stand on the side of the road while you make some passing stops so they can help determine where the brake noise is coming from.

Oh, and Wagner pads and shoes are either made in Smithville, TN or Juarez, Mexico.

Btw, what part of the country are you located in?

 

HAHAHA....I tried to have my son stick his head out the window and determine where the noise was coming from. I received a 50/50 split on his opinion. He is definately sure it is coming from the front OR the rear. LOL.

Ill just take the back apart and take a look. It didn't squeak when I first did them, so it may be related to lube drying out. I dunno. If i can't fix it, well, its just a squeal.

 

Documented, proven and published in numerous professional automotive publications. Also Wellman (mfg of well known brake linings) ...tech support has recommended this (shims) over the years as well.

The Wagner pads, if you looked at them very closely, sometimes has small hole (like pores in skin) that are deep enough to trap brake dust.....when the pad is cleaned (with air or product) the squeak will go away, only to return....using a magnifying glass you can visually see brake dust which has built up & partially embedded with these pores...if you would like I can send pics of what I have done with our own personal vehicles dating back to 1997 that consistently works. I'm not saying there are not other solutions, making the assumption that I was chatting with a person who probably had a little more experience and had done all the conventional troubleshooting.....these are the more rare solutions that I have found worked for myself.

 

Like I said, that may very well be the case, but the noise is exactly the same as with factory pads, and I don't think Ford uses Wagners. What is your suggestion for pads WITH SHIMS that you prefer?

 

If you do a web search, you will discover you are not the only one who experiences this. While it is true, your model may not require shims, they do work and can eliminate the squeal....and I agree, you don't need slotted rotors, etc. On my Mark LT, I replaced my brake pads at about 30k miles with CarboTech linings....a lining that I have used for about 20 years. the oem shims where not quite up to eliminating 100% of the "squeal", I purchased the material as stated, fabbed up the shims and it has been absolutely quiet fo 20k miles.......not an unusual situation, I did this with our 1997 cougar sport (V8/4 wheel disc) when it was new and it resolved the issue.

with regards to "I'm not interested in some schmuck at a shop with no more education than myself charging an arm and a leg to do a job that's will result in the same end product. This is just a brake job.", I agree, and I did not imply that you should get someone with less than needed knowledge. It appeared by your previous posting that you were unaware of what anti-squeal shims were or looked like or used for. Because of this, while I agree this is an easy fix, there is much to look at and there is a bit of detail involved.....much easier to have a neighbor who has more experience sitting next to you talking through it than for most to try to type in all that information on a chat forum....clearly for your benefit.

For future...a little FYI on IMHO on brake linings....

With regards to brake linings in general,

Ceramics: They are good but do not develop any more friction than good quality OEM linings

Performance Friction & Hawk: Good braking, increased friction but very dirty compared to OEM for most of the product lines.

Wagner & Raybestos: a line of products that is 100% marketing and mfg from very low quality/inexpensive and/or imported products with the mfg's not providing any back-up or support on product failures (and I mean real ugly spontaneous, catestrophic failures) including lining fracturing and drums (new) that shattered (multiple fractures in the castings) and in each case, the mfg's had no interest in addressing the issue....this included production & engineering management who had the product in hand, the wholesaler & myself present.

VelveTouch lining- Used for many decades and was the original lining used in all Shelby Mustangs in the 60’s (I personally have used the Velvetouch lining since 1960’s until brake lining production ceased in 1986), then switched to Carbo. Wellman has been the builder of braking linings for Formula 1 race teams for more than 30 years and purchased hawk a few years ago.

Bendix- TitaniuMetallic™ II, a newer lining (semi-metallic) and although I have not personally used this, I have always been impressed with Bendix brake linings and this particular lining IIMHO would be a low dust, excellent oem upgrade/mild performance type brake lining.

CarboTech Engineering lining, which I have used for about 20+ years and been very happy on multiple full size (V8) cars and trucks. This particular lining has a high friction co-efficient, excellent pedal feel, wears (typically 50,000 to 75,000 miles before replacement is required) and produces less dust than OEM linings. I switched to these when the VelvaTouch line was initially stopped in 1987.

Fyi- braking co-efficient is what identifies the bite rating of the linings- you want the CE to be no less than that of the OEM.....this will drive most e-base distributors & big box store "experts" right out of their mind because they either cannot verify this info or you will find the spec is less than oem. IMHO, i would look for a CE that is .49 or greater.

 

Ok, assuming that mechanically "everything" is in good shape...and this was occurring before (I thought this was a new condition), I'm partial to carbo...bendix is also a good line and less $...The Carbo linings run about $150-$200..... IMHO...see my post above......but I would really inspect the calipers, brake lines carefully a 2nd time (if you haven't done so) to ensure nothing is hanging up/restricting.

 

Out of the window is still tricky due to the reverberation in the wheel wells, under the truck, and in the cabin, especially if the noise is coming from the brake on the other side of the vehicle. Its best to be standing outside and have the vehicle braking as it passes by.

 

SK Wellman used to be part of the company I worked for over 30 years. They have no noise research or abatement abilities.

Whatever the service trade publications you are loosely referring to, that is not what we in the friction material industry have found. If brake dust was a significant contributor to brake noise, then all friction material would be noisy all the time once the dust level reaches a certain point. I don't see a lot of "bring your vehicle in every 25k miles so we can remove the dust causing noise" in the service industry, despite what the old Midas TV ad may have you believe.

A certain level of porosity is needed for brake noise abatement, and those who manufacture friction materials keep a close eye on the porosity of the product. It acts by altering the natural frequency of the friction material and its pad assembly. Noise insulators are then designed around the frequencies that can't be controlled by friction material composition, its porosity, and selection of underlayers or attachment.

When you take a brake pad out and reinstall it you change all of it's contact indices, especially when you abrade or use compressed air on the rubbing surfaces. It then takes time to reestablish those and in some cases may have eliminated the errand bit of debris or inconsistency in the rubbing surface matrix. And if its a problem which is generated by the in-situ carbonization of the rubbing surface, then it will just return.

What really was the turning point was telling a person to buy a piece of stainless steel, cut it out to the shape of the pad and use that as a "noise insulator". That tells me you never read anything about noise insulators (shims) and their function.

 

Im going to take the rears apart again. I know at least one will hang at times, so im replacing both calipers. While im there, Ill check out pads and see what I find.