So i heard a grinding noise when i brake on my way into town. I just did front brakes this spring so i parked at walmart and found that both retaining pins have fallen out on the passenger side. Its 9 at night and any auto parts store is closed.

Anything i could rig up to get home? Or am i stuck paying a tow truck?

Also what the hell? Any idea why this happened so i can avoid it in the future?

 

Is it possible you did not assemble that side correctly?

 

That's always a possibility. is there a certain way the slide pins go in?

 

The rubber type needs to be elastic so it can have resistance and the tang/stops will prevent them from sliding out.
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The rubber in the slide pin must be flexible and the tangs/stops are pressed out to prevent the pin from sliding out. Sometimes the rubber is deteriorated and the tang/stop will be damaged while removing the pin. Notice how the tang/stop will strike the caliper support frame and not the caliper itself.

If you have the threaded slide pin (bolt) it must be properly torqued.

 

I do have the rubber type. Must have been wore out. I ended up putting a bolt with some washers in place and VERY carefully limping it home. Luckily it was the middle of the night so no traffic. Just waiting for the parts store to open.

 

Sometimes they are so rusted in place they are damaged while taking them out. I observed one of these pins so loose I was surprised it did not fall out. The rubber was deteriorated for some time.

 

caliper retainer pins should never be reused. and they only go in one way. there is a "short side" and a "long side"
if you look closely at the pins you will see the "short side" of the pin fits the caliper, and the "long side" fits the bracket.
and if put in upside down they do not properly contact the bracket or caliper and can cause issues like one side being tight, causing the pins that were put in wrong to loosen up and fall out. .

 

From what I've read(and I think it makes sense) the most common reason the pins wiggle out is because they weren't fully seated in the first place. This wouldn't be hard to do if you only are looking from the outside and don't look/feel around the back side to make sure it's seated.

+1 wide side/narrow side. They are definitely keyed.

"Never re-use caliper retaining pins" --huh?? I've never heard of that! Mine are at least 8 years old and I'm leaning towards original on the pickup, lol. They seat just fine and while my brakes aren't perfect, they aren't any worse than all the other brakes I've worked on. Is that really a thing?

OP: That's some good ingenuity using a bolt+washers to get home. I like that. My first thought was to wire the brake out of the way and wire/zip tie a spacer between the pads. Then the other 3 brakes still work fine. But your idea is better!

 

never reusing the retainer pins is something i got from the ASE brake courses i took way back when.

and it made sense since the pins were less than a buck a pair back then.
i saw many brake issues come into the shop back when i ran it that were caused by old retainers that had separated because they were reused. put new retainers in and no more problems.

 

Awesome, thanks for the tip!

 

Thanks for all the replies. looking closely i can see the subtle difference on the pins. I definitely could have installed them wrong or they could have been deteriorated. The new pins fit a lot more snug, and now I have an extra set in the glovebox.