3rd gen brake upgrade

[TMMK Toy]

So this past weekend finally got around to upgrading my front brakes on the camry. So twin piston calipers, cryo slot rotors, and Hawk pads. Already got SS lines from when I did em a year ago. Pretty much went smoothly except for the fact my buddy had the calipers switched. He didnt realize that calipers have to go to their corresponding size. He grabbed one from a box so I figured he knew that it was the right side and I had mentioned I was checking the rotors to make sure they could be used on any side so figured maybe he'd give it some thought to the calipers too. So when we went to bleed the brakes, the pedal never felt right then we finally discovered the problem, switched sides, and pedal felt good again.

Only other complication was that one caliper was missing a mounting bracket. Auto zone didnt have one and the place I got the calipers from was closed on sunday. Luckily pep boys had it, but I had to buy a kit that came with a bunch of brackets, so that was an extra 20 bucks. Only other odd thing was that in addition to the 4 gold brackets that go on each corner of the pad mounting points, there was a sliver clip that looked similiar but slightly smaller that was included with each caliper. We could not find out purpose they serve and so didn't use em. I haven't noticed any issues since driving the car so anyone care to enlighten me as to what they do?

[SleeperSolara]

Nice man.
Can you take a picture of the silver clip you're talkin' about??

[TMMK Toy]

I'll try to or have my friend do it. The clips are still at his place.

[SleeperSolara]

I'll try to or have my friend do it. The clips are still at his place.

Cause the silver wire little clips i got were to hold the pads away from the rotors.

[Gibson99]

i bet those little silver clips are the wear indicators. they look kinda like broken capital R like the leg of the R is laying flat on the bottom. these go on the edge (the absolute left or right side) of each pad - one clip on each pad. the curved part at the top points away from the rotor once it's assembled. These actually come in contact with the rotor once the pads get low enough, and this is what makes that horrid squealing noise that lets you know it's time for a brake job. They also double as a slight spacer on each end of the pad so that when the pads shift, they can't go far and make odd noises.

you don't HAVE to have these, but they're nice - like i said, they let you know when it's time for a brake job, usually in time to prevent rotor damage.

[TMMK Toy]

Ahhh, that sounds like you guessed it Gibson. Good looking out. I honestly have never seen clips like that before and I don't go by wear indicators or noise, since the pads I always run are noisy anyway. lol. I just pretty much know that rotors will last me 30k miles or so, with half of my pad left.

Sleeper, thanks for your input, but those clips you talking about the ones that look like a lil spring loaded affair that squeeze the pads together? If so, we did make sure to put those on. lol. Otherwise I'd be SOL

[SleeperSolara]

Glad we got that figured out.
That's good.
The wire clip lookin' thingy is to keep the pads off the rotors after you release the brae pedal.