a little reminder to do things right the first time
 

well as some of you may know i did my brakes a while back, about a week ago, i didnt use a torque wrench, i simply exerted all force within me using a small box end wrench on everything, because a large wrench wouldnt fit and all of our ratchets were screwed up.

keep in mind ive been driving around for about a week....yesterday as i was coming down the driveway i noticed a strange clunking sound coming from the left front of my car....i pretended i didnt hear it and went on with life.

Today i backed up, and when i hit the brakes the car lurched and clunked and made the most god awful grinding sounds ive ever heard....

I didnt drive it where i was intending to go and as soon as i got back i popped off the left front wheel to have a look around...

One caliper bracket bolt was loose, the top one, and the bottom one......GONE COMPLETELY

so now i have to go try and get a new bolt tomorrow, and im gonna redo BOTH sides and use some thread locker and torque the heck out of them, heck i might even buy a torque wrench one of these days :D

im just thankful this chose to happen when im backing out of my yard at 5mph instead of screaming down the highway at 95.

hey that happened to my buddies car, after I did his front brakes....

boreas has story kinda like this

Yeah... this happened to me in the work truck. Boss got the brakes fixed on a friday. That monday I left with the truck for New Orleans. Made it to New Orleans with no problem. Was there 3 days, then headed home. Got all the way to just outside buffalo, ny (little over an hour from here) and it started making this horrible sound, so I stopped at the rest stop and called my boss, found a service shop near by, limped it the 3 miles there and 5 hours later they located the part, check all the other work the previous shop did and sent me on my way. Needlesstosay, I was back a little later. BTW, this was a 2001 ford ranger.

Never torqued the brake caliper bolts and I have done about 7 brake jobs last one was last year on my B-day in Feburary FREEZIN cold and they lasted just fine. Maybe the wrench you were using was just too small to get them tight enough. Just use a regular 3/8 ratchet and tighten them I dont think there is a need to torque them.

i busted one ratchet trying to get them off to begin with, and all of our ratchets have seen better days, next time ill put a bar on the wrench and torque as best i can...the small wheel well and positioning of the bolts make it difficult to get anything very large in there.

maybe you should just buy a torque wrench. I would hope that you think your life is worth more than a 100$ torque wrench.