AJCxZ0

..of the products, not something useful like the job itself.

Having had the rotors turned at the dealership the day before, I had the pleasure of watching and being educated on the process of installing new pads by Dennis Furlong (I-MOD) of i-MODify.com .

But the story begins before then with two purchases following extensive research (searching the forums and the web, which seemed to inevitably link back to the forums): one easy, one not.

The easy one was the Hawk Performance Ceramic Brake Pads, part number HB530Z.570, for $93.89 + $9.99 shipping from hawkperformancebrakepads.com. Due to my misunderstanding of the number of pads in a package, I actually bought two sets and saved a few dollars with $1.99 shipping for the second set, which feature in this photo:



The tricky one was the Molykote M-77, aka. Molykote, M-77, Moly, Molybdenum Disulfide, Assembly Paste and other names which, once I learned that I'd need some for my Hawk pads (since they - unlike the OEM pads - didn't come with any), made it harder to track down a suitable product.

If you search for it, you usually end up with either trying to get a little packet as shipped with the OEM pads from a dealer for a price which suggests a different kind of dealer, or a tub of the stuff for $66 CDN. Thanks to the honesty of canadian tub seller Raye Lewis and more searching, I found a 75g tube for $13.20 + $3.95 from Tim at Ray Laks / hondacuraworld.com, Honda part #08798-9010, which arrived extremely well packaged and looks like this:



After having the pads installed with a liberal amount of the M-77 paste carefully applied to both sides of the cleaned original shims, rear surface of the pads and a dab on the ends of the pins, I drove to a nearby car park [USAian: parking lot] and amused onlookers while following the burnishing (bedding) process helpfully given on the box:



with ten moderate stops, three hard stops and a fifteen minute cool off with a slight roll every five minutes to move the pads so they weren't over the same bit of rotor the whole time, as suggested by Dennis.

So far these brakes have been performing perfectly. In addition to stopping the car as well as the original OEM pads (in all breaking conditions encountered so far, ie. no emergency stops or wet conditions yet), they make almost no noise at any speed and it's a bit early to tell how much dust they'll make, but I'm not seeing any significant deposit on the clean wheels after a few hours driving.

Kostyan

please let us know after a week's worth of driving how much dust has accumulated, the pics are even better.
The brakes are not supposed to squel period under any circumstances, thats how our cars come from the factory. I would rather have wheel dust but no squeal.

SodaLuvr

The molykote 77 can be substituted with a synthetic brake caliper grease such as the green one by Permatex or the dark grey one by CRC. I use the Permatex one without issues and it costs $1 for a single-use pack.

The Haw pads already come with pressed shims, IIRC. There's no need to reuse the original shims since the new pads already have shims.

SouthernBoy

Question. Is there any danger of damage to the pistons if you do not use the shims? Are they just used to reduce/eliminate squealing?

AJCxZ0

I'd be happy take "before and after" photos starting with freshly cleaned wheels, but the main problem is that I'm not driving much or regularly at the moment and it's thunderstorm season here in Northern Virginia and the wheels are likely to get a good rinse as the car park briefly turns into a stream, as is likely to happen during a sufficient testing period.

Excuses aside, I'll clean them and take a "before" pic, then reset one of the trip meters anyway.

AJCxZ0

Wheels cleaned with Eagle One All Wheel And Tire Cleaner (buy one for $5.44 and get one free at my local Advance Auto Parts ) and an Oxo flexible neck soft bristle bottle brush ($3.99 beore 20% discount at Bed, Bath and Beyond ).



Not advocating those products over any other, though the brush is great.




Click on the pictures for full size (1024×768) images.

I'll post the "after" pics after I've driven a decent number of miles. I drove about 30 miles with a variety of breaking after cleaning them and they look as clean as when I started.

Adobeman

You should ditch that brush since over time it will scratch the $hit out of your wheels. The bristles are not soft, not that densly packed and will cause you to "scrub" way too much. Over time this will definitlely scratch up your rims.

You might want to just use a second lambs wool mit that you only use on the rims. My local pep boys also has a lambs wool brush wheel cleaner that will fit in all the areas on the TL wheels. As long as it is rinsed frequently while cleaning the wheels it doesn't scratch. Looks like this

Then again with those new pads you won't need to clean your rims as often as I do

AJCxZ0

I thought I was making a smart purchase based on several wheel cleaner brushes I'd examined in varous auto parts places, all of which had much stiffer bristles and some also had hard foam parts. The bristles aren't stiff like a kitchen or toilet brush, but bend really easily.

Is the wheel coating really that fragile? These bristles are almost as soft as the ones on the big brush I use to clean the car body - the type which seeems to be favoured for paint clearcoat - though less dense.

When I use it, it's not so much scrubbing off the dirt, as helping the water wash off the cleaner, especially in those hard-to-reach parts, which requires more of a gentle back-and-forth flicking than rubbing.

Since text doesn't convey tone well, I'm not trying to argue against your point, but rather try to qualify it.

That looks nice. If I had seen that while looking, I probably would have bought it. I may still.

On the other hand, surely any sponge or wool - even well rinsed - will be more likely to rub the road grit and brake dust on the wheel and cause far more abrasion than fairly soft nylon bristles agitating the dirt into the flowing water. Isn't it?

That's the plan (or part of it). We'll see when I post some dirty pictures!

01tl4tl

The HAWK method is not clear on the instructions
DO NOT stop at any time during the bedding - then do a 15 minute freeway cruise to cool them back down all the way
No need to roll the car forwar every 5 minutes- the brake pad contact with the rotor is when the transfer happens

see MrHeelToe instructions and go rebed you pads so they work right
http://heeltoeauto.com/httech/YaBB.pl?num=1184261899

AJCxZ0

That would make them not unclear, but wrong. The instructions say "stop", not brake or slow or anything ambiguous.

Hawk have the exact same instructions linked on their page for the ceramic pads .

For what it's worth, I didn't actually stop completely during the process, as I was aware of the idea of making an uneven deposit on the rotors by having the pads press on a stationary rotor. I was driving in a loop up and down the car park, only stopping after pulling into a parking spot after the last hard brake and even then I only used to parking brake in order to keep the pads off the rotors (since the parking brake is a drum separate from the driving brakes).

I rolled simply so that the same bit of rotor wasn't cooling more slowly as a result of being between the pads.

As it happened, the brakes had more than the prescribed 15 minutes to cool. I could feel the heat coming off them immediately after the burnishing and that they were cool enough to touch before I drove off.

While driving without braking would cool the rotors more quickly, it's not necessary and in many cases rather impractical.

I don't doubt those are good instructions, but I'm quite sure that what I did heated my pads and rotors and produced a good and even resin deposit on the rotors. I do know that the brakes are working very nicely; that is, they have quietly and efficiently slowed and stopped my car under a varity of conditions up to two notches below emergency braking.

What I'd be interested in seeing is some actual analysis of brake burnishing: what happens in what conditions, at what temperatures, speeds, etc. for a variety of pad materials so the process becomes less a matter of faith in a given set of instructions and more about the measured results.

Someone should ask Hawk...

shortdahri

for HawkPerformanceBrakePads.com (now BuyBrakePads.com). I got my pads from them too.

SouthernBoy

Gentlemen;

Wonder is someone could satisfy my question here. Would love to have someone knowledgeable chime in.


Question. Is there any danger of damage to the pistons if you do not use the shims? Are they just used to reduce/eliminate squealing?

shortdahri

Here's something I read from a well known brake pad manufacturer:

Many semi metallic pads (those containing steel fibre) come fitted from the factory or aftermarket suppliers with rubberized metal shims on the back to prevent rattling and squealing. This is because of the type of material they use. We very rarely use shims because in 99 cases out of 100 we do not get noise, due to the non metallic nature of our pads. In certain cases however and in certain types of use, especially “under-use” shims may be necessary to quieten a pad.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

AJCxZ0

337.3 miles since the above clean wheels, during which time there has been some rain, but no significant rinsing of the wheels. I've been looking at them periodically to see how dirty they have been getting and they've not got noticably cleaner or dirtier between each inspection.





Lighting conditions varied slightly, but I tried to take the same pictures with the car in the same place.

SodaLuvr

How's the brake noise?

Are the pads still quiet? Or do they squeal a little?

SodaLuvr

YES.

AJCxZ0

On the odd ocasion I ride with the windows down and no music playing, I've not heard anything from them.

Of course I am somewhat distracted since I can actually hear the engine.