Help with loose caliper

[Ragtopman]

Hi, I'm helping out my sister with a brake problem on her 04 Grand Cherokee. Last week she brought it to me with a pulsing in the steering wheel when she applied the brakes. I put on a set of brakes and front rotors. Now there is a rattling noise up front. Fount the passenger caliper it loose and I can't get it to tighten up. The mount is tight so I just ordered a set of caliper bolts. Could the caliper itself be bad?

 

[SteelHeadz]

Between the slide bolts and caliper mount, there should be a sufficient lubricant where the friction occurs. The brake lubricant buffers the vibration caused by the road inputs transferred to the calipers and also enables the equal pressure on both inboard and outboard brake pads. Exessive wear on the caliper mounts and or slide bolts will cause a rattle. Also, ensure that the rubber boots on the slide bolts are not torn. These boots also keeps the caliper tight on the slide bolts and retains the brake lubricant within the slide area.

 

[cmbraith]

If you can grab onto the caliper after you've bolted it on, shake it around, and make it move... it would seem to me that your threads are damaged.
You can usually buy a pair of caliper bolts cheaper at your local hardware 2store... I snapped the a caliper bolt on my jeep while putting them back on after a brake job, and got all 4 for just a couple bucks. A good solution would be to get a helicoil set so you have some decent threads to use with your new bolts... Do the bolts ever get tight, or does the bolt just spin? If the bolts get tight, you may have some wear on the mounts like Steelheadz was talking about above. If the bolts won't go tight, you have thread damage.

 

[Ragtopman]

The bolts tighten right up. Its the caliper itself that is sloppy. Just enough to be heard when you hit a bump. I think it was caused by the warped rotor

 

[89stocker]

calipers are pretty cheap especially if you can find one at a junk yard

even new ones are fairly inexpensive for how important they are