On Sun, 26 Jan 2020 12:28:55 +0000, Roger Mills
wrote:

On 26/01/2020 11:14, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Roger Mills wrote:
I've just replaced the front discs and pads on my wife's 20-year-old
Ford Puma, and I have a query about the so called retaining clips. They
are made of highly tempered steel wire and the free ends plug into holes
in the caliper. They have loops which hook behind lugs on the caliper
carrier. They look like this:


They're not retaining clips. They are correctly anti-rattle springs. Which
may also reduce the chances of brake squeal.


You mean that they stop the caliper from rattling on its carrier?

No, not really, as the pins are usually a close sliding fit and there
are often bellows to keep the dirt and dust out so they don't
(typically) wear that much (if maintained properly).

In
that case, mine are probably fitted correctly.

Yes, assuming they are the right clips for that caliper (and the eBay
link suggested they were) then they can't really be fitted any other
way to do what they were designed to do..

Do they look ok to you?
[Link to photo in my original post]

Yes. If the caliper bits were allowed to just float about and assuming
the piston(s) were very freely moving then you can get 'slack' in the
sandwich, allowing the pads and moving caliper component(s) to clatter
as you went over bumps and allow for more slack to take up when you
pressed the pedal. By providing a bit of resistance (the spring in the
clip), things stay together better and when the pads / rotor wear, the
looped ends of the clips can move (slide) to compensate.

Cheers, T i m