brake question

[MikeE24]

I have a simple brake question. If I use titanium pads do i have to get non-stock replacement rotors?

[Kevin - Blown 95 TA]

If you use Titanium pads, you need to use rotors made of Kryptonite.

[MikeE24]

ok the guy at the parts shop may be stupid but I guess I am dumber b/c i cannot figure out what is wrong w/ my car. I changed the brakes tuesday, but friday night/ early sat. morning when I was on my way home the brakes started grinding. well saturday morning when I took wheels off to inspect it turned out that my right front caliper was missing a bolt. So I spent all day looking for a store that has it and replace it w/ a similar bolt that was on the other side. Late sat. night/ early sun. morning when I am giving a friend a ride home I notice the same thing that happend friday night.(brakes grinding). So I guess my question should be changed as to what I am doing wrong when screwing in a bolt. I mean I've done it many times but this is frustrating. My car is at a shopping center now where I had to leave it due to this problem, but is there something simple I can do or does the whole assembly need to be replaced? I've done brakes and rotors on other cars and never had problems like this. I'm kinda a newb but I did everything the manual said to do so I have to ask u guys what i'm doing wrong.

[Kevin - Blown 95 TA]

Mike, It might not be anything serious. If you just replaced pads, then they need to be seated onto your old rotors, which have some wear. You need to make some graduated hard stops to wear those in. Last fall, I did a brake job for a friend on a Grand Prix and we replaced rotors & pads. It made a light grinding sound at first, but after a couple hard stops from 30 mph in the parking lot, they quieted right down and the sound went away, and his car has been fine for the past few months. If you need info on breaking in pads, look at the Baer Brakes site for how to do it correctly http://www.baer.com/

Other than that, it's hard to tell from your post what might be wrong, but you need to make sure that the caliper is floating on the pins. If it can't move back & forth to center itself on the rotor, then you could get uneven pressure from the caliper when you replace the pads with new ones. As for the missing bolt, I'm not sure how that happenned to you since they are fairly stiff to get in and out - I can't imagine one falling out on it's own, and maybe some damage was done when you were driving around with one bolt holding it in.

[97LT1Z28]

Stripped bolts?

Could the bolts be stripped? If not, try this...... after putting everything together again, "seat" the calipers -- put the car in reverse and go about 5 MPH then apply the brakes gently. Do this a couple of times. Then drive the car around the block normally once or twice - use the brakes gently. Park the car, jack it up properly and re-torque the caliper bolts. It's very possible that the calipers were in an awkward position when tightened down and that could be why the bolts are falling out. When retightening the bolts after driving, be careful - they will be hot. This should correct the problem if all the hardware has been installed (no spare parts). As they say in China..... "Good Ruck."