I've got a '66 122s for a daily driver with stock calipers and wheels and on my drive home yesterday, when I would apply the brakes, I would hear a loud smacking/scraping sound that sounded like it occurred at wheel 1/rev. Along with the loud sound I would also feel the car shake. Upon inspection of the brake caliper, I noticed that there was metal removed from the caliper and matching wear marks on the inside of the wheel rim. Any theories on how this could happen?

Some other background, two months ago I changed the brake pads, caliper hardware, had the rotors resurfaced at a big box auto chain, cleaned and re-greased bearings, and reassembled. While everything seemed to be working fine, I noticed that the wheel would get hot after a long drive. So last weekend I inspected the caliper and noted one of the lock clips was missing from the guide pin and the damping spring of the outboard pad was nowhere to be found. I promptly replaced it with the old hardware I had leftover from two months ago and after driving about 25 miles the caliper is now contacting the wheel rim intermittently while braking (and only while braking, I tried coasting and down-shifting to alleviate the brakes on my way home both of which produced no "noticeable" contact).

I'll probably spend the better part of the Thanksgiving weekend working on it so any help to identify the culprit would be much appreciated.

Thank you.
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Andy - '66 122s, '03 Trailblazer

Tony mentioned below, but just to stress the thought...

Make sure your caliper isn't about to fall off!

I had one of the caliper mount bolts unknowingly fall out, the caliper pivoted on the remaining bolt, wedged against the inside of the wheel, and quite effectively locked up that wheel. Suffice to say, this was a very unpleasant experience that I do not recommend!


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-Matt I ♥ my ♂

After about five minutes with the wheel off and inspecting everything, I grabbed the caliper to shake it and lo and behold, it was missing a bolt. The caliper was pivoting about the top-most bolt and lower bolt was nowhere to be found. In the out-of-focus image, you can see the chunk of material missing that the wheel rim ripped out on my journey home from first noticing the issue.

Thank you all for the help.
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Andy - '66 122s, '79 264

The caliper mounting bolts were originally installed with a locking tab (part number 669012). I have noticed that these often get lost.

Dean

In the abscence of the locking tab, maybe a wee dram of blue Loc-tite might help things stay in place.

And you drove it when it was making those sounds??? ;)

Glad you caught it, glad it didn't grind down into the internal brake fluid passages!

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-Matt I ♥ my ♂

I'm with Tony. I think your wheel bearing may be loose.
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George Downs Bartlesville, Oklahoma

Thank you all for the input. I guess tomorrow morning I shall start with checking the play in the wheel bearings and hopefully posting positive results.

Thanks again.
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Andy - '66 122s, '79 264

check the Caliper mounting to the axle.. maybe that hardware losened up.
You mentioned a brake overhaul not too long ago. Check all hardware and clips to see that nothing losened.
Check Spindle nut for loseness you greased the bearing, maybe that nut back off a bit
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'75 Jeep CJ5 345Hp ChevyPwrd, two motorcycles, '85 Pickup: The '89 Volvo is the newest vehicle I own. it wasn't Volvos safety , it was Longevity that sold me http://home.lyse.net/brox/TonyPage4.html http://cleanflametrap.com/tony/

Obviously this shouldn't happen. I've never noticed that there are clearance problems, not even close. This problem does arise when fitting some 14" wheels and is usually cured by a quick buzz with a grinder or using very thin spacers. If you don't use Volvo hubcaps, many people leave them off, you might not have realised that your wheels aren't the normal 15" ones.

I would be inclined to believe it was a wheel issue, except I've put 10k miles on these wheels and only the front passenger wheel is having issues 25 miles after a missing damping spring in it's caliper was replaced.

Since I'm away from the car now, I've found the best photo on my phone of the wheels to see if it can be confirmed that they are stock or not. It's my first time posting an image, hope it works.
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Andy - '66 122s, '79 264

Well they look like the stock rims. Let's see, is this about right? No problem before the recent work was done then "all of a sudden" a problem arises after the recent work was done. Except in the case of an extreme coincidence, and because of the very odd nature of the problem, I'd have to say that you have probably blundered some where along the way. Parts just don't just start falling out on the highway, calipers don't dramatically change their position. Start from scratch, pull it all apart and reassemble carefully, you'll find the problem.