The dealer I bought my pre-owned 08 XK from changed the front pads (car had 34K miles and it didn't pass their minimum limits) problem is after over 1000 miles and several attempts to "bed" them they intermittently SQUEAL when coming to a slow stop.

I'm guessing they over looked the anti-squeal compound. I have several tubes of the stuff left over from my Corvettes and am ready to pull the rotors/calipers/pads to apply the anti-squeal compound to the back of the pads.

I'm familiar with Corvette's and can changes pads in 30 minutes. Are there any special bits of advice I need before tackling? Particularly what is the caliper bolt size and torque settings for the caliper bolts and wheel lugs?

Thanks

Tom

 

I change all my brake components on all my cars. Just before I traded my '05 XK for my present '08, I changed the front rotors and the pads on the '05 as well as flushed the old brake fluid. From that perspective, it was really easy to do the work. The '07.... should be just as easy.

I do not remember the bolt sizes but, it was one of the common metric ones. As to torque specs, I usually do not use my torque wrench on the caliper bolts for lack of room in the wheel housing for the long handle of the torque wrench. I simply use the shorter wrench from my pro-socket set and go by the "feel". If I had to "guess" at the proper torque values, it would be similar to the torque used for tightening the wheel nuts, or in the range of 85 - 100 ft/lbs. The caliper bolt diameter is quite similar, if I remember correctly.

The one thing that I can fully advise is to be sure to use a medium thread locking compound on the bolts. I generally use the "blue" compound that will do a great job of preventing the bolts from backing out but, will not become a permanent lock as the "red" compound would be. I never had a bolt come loose that had thread lock applied, while I had one brake caliper come loose that I installed when I was out of my blue thread lock supply.

Check your brake fluid, if dark, you might also want to flush it as long as you have the wheels off the car. I will do that soon on my '08 as the fluid is getting dark after 22K miles. I got it as a Certified car, brand new rotors and pads but, the dealer did not flush the original fluid.

Good luck with the work,

Albert