‘Clonking’ brakes
 

Since an MOT advisory on brakes a few months ago, I had new pads fitted, but my garage had to ‘trim’ the pads a bit to get them to fit. As a result, the brakes ‘clonked’ every time I switched from forword to reverse (and vice versa) and, on bumpy roads, at low speeds, there was a ‘clonky’ noise from the front.
I’ve now swapped the calipers (reconned by Pro Calipers - thanks Mark!) and had new Brembo pads fitted, but the ‘reverse clonk’ is still there, although the low speed ‘clonk’ does seem to have gone.
Any ideas folks?

Would it be a case where the garage have trimmed them too much, so allowing for too much movement, manifested by the 'clonk' you hear? As your example from forward to reverse, you've stopped with your foot on the brake, which would be keeping the pads raised slightly in the caliper. When you put it in reverse, and take your foot of the brake, the pads drop back to the bottom of the caliper giving the clonk. I'm assuming something similar is happening with normal driving. The pads are sitting at the bottom of the caliper, and when you brake, the pads are gripping the disc and being moved upwards to hit the top of the caliper, again giving the clonk.

With the new calipers and pads, the spacing is more like it should be, with the pads moving less. I'd suggest waiting for MJs input.

I had the exact same issue as you described. New Brembo pads fitted a few years back which had to be trimmed to fit followed by clonking when switching from reverse to drive; however when I had my calipers recondition by Pro Calipers a few months back with new Brembo pads it completely illiminated the brake knocking noise

Tom mentioned there was a fair bit of corrosion around the plates which needed addressing on both calipers and recommended a full recon instead of just a paint job. Apparently the plate corrosion would have caused the pads to move around (I’m not an expert but he seemed to know what he was talking about). Did you have the plates removed on your units as well?

The calipers are newly reconditioned by Pro Calipers, but I’m not sure if the garage trimmed the pads. I’ll ask. Not sure exactly what was done as the calipers belonged to Mark and he had the reconditioning done. I think he had ‘the works, but I’m not sure.

They were indeed fully refurbished. That seems to be one of Thomas' selling points in fact, that Pro Calipers are one of the few who properly strip and refurbish calipers, rather than just clean and re-paint them.

This was the email (and photos) he sent me:

I went throught the same thing, but refused to trim new Brembo pads as I couldnt believe that that should be necessary or right. Thats when I got speaking to Pro-calipers and why I went with them because they split the block and then straighten the stainless steel pad guides which get distorted from corrosion build up.. Any garage who trims new Brembo pads to fit in Brembo calipers should be asking themselves whats causing this rather than going for the easy option. My bet is that your pads are now loose in the properly sized pad guides.

I’ll call the garage tomorrow, but why would they feel the need to trim the pads in newly refurbished calipers?

I missed the bit in your first post where you said you put new Brembo pads into the calipers refurbished by Pro-Calipers ( I thought the trimmed pads had been put in). So, like you, I am surprised the clonk is still there. Let us know what the garage say.

My guess is they didn't fit new pads