Wiggling brake shim

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Jan 7, 2009
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Rochester, MI, US, World
I pulled apart the rear brakes on the Fusion today, since they had some issues sticking. I cleaning everything and applied some moly/PTFE grease, and all is well. However, I did notice that a shim on one of the pads was a little bit 'loose'. This style of shim has the crimped metal fingers that wrap around the metal portion of the pad, and is by no means going to fall off. It was just the slightest bit loose. Pads are only 5 months old, FWIW. Should this worry me? Brakes work great and make no noise. I'm pretty sure I've even seen shims a bit loose when pads are new, but I can't remember.
 
Some shims are floating, some are bonded. I've never really had a problem with floating shims making noise (when used with a good grease), but have had some light noise when a bonded shim has become loose (as is the case with the rear Bendix CT-3 pads on my Mazda6, which I believe uses the same brake setup as your Fusion). And I too was having issues with some sticking because I had previously used CRC brake lube on the slide pins/rubber parts (but it is good for pad backing plates and pad carrier ears). Cleaned it all up, new seals, new bushings, and used Napa Syl-Glide and no problems since.
 
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