Caliper rattling... any ideas? (please help a girl!)

[dobbie82]

Hi, tried driving the e30 the other day and it was making an awful noise from the nsf wheel. so turned back pretty sharpish as sounded like the wheel was gonna fall off! (I even began to suspect I hadnt put the wheel bolts back )

Turns out its the caliper. Even when its tighten up as far as it will go, its still easily movable by hand...

I presume re-con calipers is the best way forward? And had I may as well change the pads while I am there?
MOT is in about 3 weeks so dont want to spend a fortune. (seeing as I very much doubt I can change them myself so have labour cost on top)

[tezk]

Your absolutely sure its the caliper? I had a nasty rattling sound from the osf of mine that had me pretty worried until I realised it was the mountings for the front bumber that had worked loose from the wing

When you say tighten up, you mean the 2 caliper mount bolts? Could be wear on those. If you pick up a caliper of the same brand (including the slide bolts) its not a 10 minute job to replace. And then the bleeding.

I got calipers from a 325 on here for next to nothing that were still shiny and fit on the 320 with no problems, though they were a different brand, so I had to replace the caliper mounts as well.

[Brianmoooore]

The caliper slide pins frequently strip their threads where they screw into the caliper mounting bracket. IIRC, BMW sell a repair kit (not sure what it contains).
As mentioned above, different caliper makes use different mounting brackets.

[pnd]

callipers usually make a grinding noise feel the wheel is it hotter after a run than the other side. This is a common problem with these cars options are repair kit recon calliper or try a secondhand one. you might not need to change the pads though especially if this problems just started.

[chinna]

just to throw another one in the mix with the spring/retaining strip of metal on the caliper you put on at the end. not sure what it's actually called but i thought the calipers were quite loose till putting this metal strip back on. the manual on the links part of this site just call it a clip, sorry.