Brake anti rattle clip drags on rotor

[tdicola]

Hi all, I just bought a '99 Cherokee with 150k miles and noticed a squealing sound from the front wheels at low speed. The squeal comes on after the car has warmed up and driven for a while. It will only come on after braking but will keep squealing afterwards regardless of the brakes being applied or not. A friend and I took a closer look and can see the anti rattle clips on the brake pads are dragging on the edge of the rotors. When we hold the clip up and move the wheel a bit the squealing goes away.

Here's a picture:

Has anyone experienced this problem and found any good solution? Looking at the factory service manual for a 99 XJ I don't see any anti rattle clips mentioned (although it looks like older models had them). I'm thinking I should just rip the clips off and see how things go as the squealing is pretty annoying right now.

As a side note do you have to take the whole caliper off to get these clips off? I'm thinking I'll just get some wire cutter and snip them in half to save the trouble.

 

[Johnnie Walker]

The renix era are previous brake ARE different than later models.
Unless you cut them, then you need to remove the caliper.

 

[1990JEEPXJ]

my renix doesnt have the clips and it doesnt rattle. i would say just remove the clips. i dont really see how brake pads could rattle anyway

 

[tdicola]

I cut off the anti-rattle clips today (small 8" bolt cutter from Harbor Freight worked perfectly to do it) and wow my brakes are completely silent now. If anyone else has similar problems try removing the anti-rattle clips, it made a world of difference for me.

 

[Matthew Currie]

I've never seen these clips on either my 95 or 99, so I think it's a fine idea to cut them off. I had a set of pads once that included little shims to clip over the worn spots on the slides, but they never fit very well so I left them off too.

Brake pads can rattle or engage with a clicking sound if they're a bit loose on the slides, especially if, as often happens, they get a little worn or chunked out. Remember that the only thing retracting them is the combination of disk runout and springiness of the piston seals, so they ride very close to the disk. Rattle won't hurt your braking any, so you can lose the clips or leave them out.

I've seen worse. I have a Ford Focus with brakes that rattle, clunk, squeak and make a wheezing sound. There's nothing at all wrong with them, and they stop beautifully, but if you didn't know this, you'd panic every time you touch the pedal.

 

[Talyn]

I've never seen these clips used on any XJ.

 

[Shorty]

both my Renix have them-- I spent more time trying to remember how they went back on than I did on the rest of the brake work the first time I tore into one. I've also still got a rattling pad on one side, so I'm not very sure of their effectiveness, anywho. I'm planning to "forget" to install them next time I'm in there and see if anything changes.