The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the National Street Rod Association and/or StreetScene Magazine. Silence—Not Always Golden!
R ecently I put my car on jack stands and proceeded to have a good long look underneath. The car has logged over 35,000 miles and I’ve replaced some serv- ice items already. A couple years ago I replaced the front brake pads and hadn’t put that many miles on the car and, from the outside, they looked fine, and the car seemed to drive and stop fine. While under the car, I checked the brake system for leaks, loose fasteners, or poten- tial problems and noticed through the ‘window’ in the back of the caliper that the inside brake pad on the left front was cracked and worse yet, so was the inside pad on the right side. I removed the calipers and pads finding both pads had broken free of their rivets in the
same place on each side and were free to move around inside the caliper. I don’t want to think of what could have happened had I continued to drive the car with this condition. The point is a major safe- ty problem was present that was silent and not easily detectable. The wear indicators on the pads that are designed to squeak when the linings are worn would never have tipped off this problem because they are mounted on the outside pad. The other question is why did this happen? While at the Nationals I was able to speak with one of the exhibitors, Ralph Lisena from ECI, about the problem who surmised an alignment issue between the caliper and the rotor was the prob- able cause for the failure. Again,
not something you would see by just looking at the brakes from the ‘top side’ of the vehicle. Regardless of whether you drive your car a little or a lot, trailer it, or run the wheels off it, these periodic checks are important. If you can’t get under your car for whatever reason, take it to a reputable service facility. Better yet, have your car Safety Inspected at any NSRA event or ask your State Safety Inspector for the name of a Safety Team member in your area who will come to you. We all seem to know some little thing that may not be perfect about our cars, but it’s the things we don’t know about that could cause seri- ous problems if left alone. Jim McAllister Michigan Safety Team
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