will your emergency brake be affected in any way, shape or form by installing new rotors/pads? Reason I ask is cause I did my brakes this weekend and when I was trying to get the front caliper off it would slide up halfway but no more so I released the parking brake....still didn't come off so I had to pry the pad away from the some more and found the pad was getting hung up on the caliper due to the little nubs on the back of the pad. The backs came off just fine, went on fine, no issues.

But with all the new stuff on i'm getting what sounds like a pad or pads rubbing on the rotor ever so slightly w/o the brake pedal being applied. I also noticed that when I engage the parking brake that I only have to press it in about halfway whereas before I had to jam it to the floor and even then it barely held. So i'm wondering.....Is the inside of the rear rotors not machined right, not bored out enough, causing the parking brake pads to rub and explaining the significant decrease in pedal travel to engage the brake? Or do I need to apply some grease to the caliper bolts? I can't imagine anything other than that being the issue seeing as how I had no problem getting the rear rotors off or back on whatsoever.

What do you think? Is it normal for the pads to rub slightly on the rotors like this? Am I over analyzing the situation? Should I expect to hear some kind of noise due to the holes/slots in the rotors as compared to stock blanks?

 

first off, the parking brake only uses the rear brakes.

as far as the front calipers, it is normal for them to need a little prying to get off. the rotors get a groove worn into them over time as they wear out, the caliper does not fully retract, it self-adjusts to keep the pad close enough to the rotor so it ALMOST touches the rotor...if it is hanging up a little, go do a 50-0 HARD stop somewhere and see if that helps. if the brakes are still very new they might smell after doing that for a minute just FYI

 

on the front brakes did you use a c clamp or a channel lock to compress the piston to remove the caliper? and the rotors that you put on what kind were they? i had a similar problem with the ones i purchased from brakamotive on ebay. the ones i purchased were next to impossible to put on and once they were on the ebrake would stay engaged. they were improperly machined. took for ever to get them back off. i sent an email to him with no response once they were off i had to grind them to put them back on and now the ebrake wont engage. the opening was machined incorrectly and the inside was also machined incorrectly.

 

You may need to loosen the rear e-brake shoes sightly. New rotors will have more material then the old ones so they may be a little too tight.

Also make sure you don't have a backing plate rubbing. Sometimes while doing brakes it will get bumped and rub slightly on the rotor. If it is, just stick a screw driver between the rotor and backing plate and pry a little until its no longer touching

 

Yeah, figured that out.

I asked my father in law about how the calipers worked when we had it off, just out of curiosity. He said the same thing you just did, pretty much. Since i'm going to have to remove the calipers and brackets this weekend to paint my calipers, think it would hurt to add a little grease to the little tabs on each end of the pads where it slides into the caliper? My thinking is that it would allow the pad to slide in and out of the caliper a little easier.

The brakes got pretty smelly on me the first day but I haven't smelled them since. It's not a metal on metal sound and it's pretty faint so i'm not gonna worry about it too much. I figure I just need to wear the pads down a bit and that'll come with a little city driving. I'll double check the rears to see if it's the parking brake pads rubbing on the inner drums, once I get the wheel off I'll spin the rotor to see if it spins freely and if it makes any noise when it's spinning.

I used a C clamp and an old brake pad. They were Kinetic drilled/slotted rotors from Brakemotive. Mine went on nice and smooth, no issue at all there.

I'll see this weekend when I get the back wheels off, if it's hard to turn or makes noise when turning I'll proceed from there. But if it's smooth to turn and makes no noise, I won't have to touch the parking brakes at all.......I hope that's how it works out!

I'll check for the backing plate rubbing too, thanks for the suggestion.