So I was doing my rear brakes. I didn't know the piston should be aligned with the alignment nubs in order to slide in. I went and cut it off. Would this cause an issue? I figured it out before I did it to the other side.
From what I understand those nubs are for the parking brake, to hold the piston in place so the screw mechanism can work holding the piston in place.
So worse case scenario is that the emergency brake don't work when I pull the e brake handle, but that shouldn't be the case because one of the other side has it. Its holding strength might be weaker.
I track the car so the brake balance is very important, I will road test it and do some heavy braking and get the infrared thermometer to get some temp readings to make sure the brakes are getting about the same amount of heat.
Yeah, I'd chalk this one up as a lesson and get new pads. I don't berkeley around when it comes to brakes being in working order, and the handbrake is part of that system.
all those nubs do is (as you guessed) keep the parking brake tensioned correctly …
ground off (on one side) shouldn't affect the car at all on the track … they only move (adjust the parking brake) when in reverse … same as the self-adjusters for drum brakes … adjustment only in reverse
On my datsun, they're used for adjustment as others have said. You're supposed to rotate the piston to line it up, install the caliper, then pull the parking brake lever several times to get them to adjust into position. I could definitely tell when they were not adjusted properly; the pedal felt soft.
Can you flip an inside pad to the outside? Sometimes they put the nubs on all four in the set, not just two.
They don't have that center nub on the other side, I think I should be fine. I need to bed in the brakes and get some heat readings on all sides of the rotor.
