Trying to put my brakes back together and had a piece come out while trying to brake some bolts lose on the suspension. Can anyone tell me what this is and possibly a picture of how it goes in?

 

Anti-rattle clip for the brake pad. The big V on the upper right goes into the caliper piston.

The left side lower tab looks like it goes into a hole in the brake pad backing plate. Been a while...

The left side upper hook goes over the pad backing plate.

Basically, the left side stuff holds onto the pad backing plate, with the upper right V going into the hollow of the caliper piston.

RBob.

 

Thanks, I'll be working on it again tomorrow but I think I know what you mean from looking at it earlier.

On another note... what actually holds the pads into the caliper? When I took mine off there wasn't anything holding them in place, seems like they would be leaning and rubbing the disk like that?

 

They are full float per design, pinning just causes bind.

 

That spring holds the pad on to the caliper slightly. The caliper, pins and knuckle are what actually locate the pads. No need to worry about the pad dragging on the rotor when brakes are released. If there's no hydraulic pressure, the spinning of the rotor will move the pad/piston in enough so that it won't drag.

 

The inner pad is held by the anti-rattle clip.

The outer pad gets the tabs on it crimped onto the caliper body. There is one long tab center on one edge of the pad, then two smaller tabs on the outer edges of the pad. Usually use a large pair of channel locks to bend the smaller tabs into better contact with the caliper body.

They are more for anti-rattle then to retain the pad in place.

RBob.

 

Hmm, I'm not sure if I understand how this is supposed to work or if they were ever even installed right.

The outer pad does have some tabs on the top side that would prevent it from falling off, but I don't see how those tabs would prevent it from leaning in. The inner pad, the metal piece on the back of it that this anti rattle clip hooks to is actually lose on one side from the pad itself a little.

I mean I guess it works cause the brake pads are not that old (maybe 5k miles on them) and they don't have much wear on them and the rotors don't have any marks to indicate rubbing on them, it just doesn't make sense to me atm lol. Perhaps I'll figure it out when I put them back on later.