Garrett93

Sorry, as this may be unclear since I have to go through someone to get this information. But I will try my best to convey it over. Anyway onto the problem:

Car is a 99 DX hatchback with disc brakes in the rear. Just changed the rotors and pads in the rear and put on BMW bottlecap wheels, and the wheel will not spin freely. He tried putting the old rotors on, and it still will not spin freely. Any ideas as to what will be causing this?

jdm_ef9

anyway you can get more details? that is a wide range of possibilities. Were the pads, rotors, and wheels done at the same time? What is the rear disc conversion from? Were the correct corresponding parts purchased? Did a caliper seize up? Was everything installed correctly? Are there visible contact points causing the wheel not to turn? (like incorrect rotors hitting caliper bracket or incorrect hardware and/or pads)

Garrett93

Definitely,

Pads and rotors done at the same time. Wheels were done a while ago, but the car hasn't really been driven at all. The rear conversion I am not sure where it is from, my brother bought the car like that. He got integra GSR pads, which are the same as the pads used for any rear brakes that year. I don't think the caliper seized up, but again I am not at home, so I can't check anything. I can tell him to take a look for that. There were no visible points of contact, and I believe he complained of smoking. He said that it smelt like burning rubber, but he doesn't know much about cars, and I bet it was the smell of brakes.

Garrett93

Okay, it's not the caliper binding up he says. He says when the wheel is not on the rotor will spin freely, but as soon as he puts it on, it doesn't. And I believe it is just this one side and not the other side. But I'll check into that later on.

Yep4doors

It sounds like a seized or barely working piston in the caliper. My integra has a similar problem though the wheel wasn't seized. I took it around the block after I changed the brakes and rotoes and it was.smoking like hell.

Also idk if he has abs rear calipers but the abs ones you must screw back in when non abs calipers you don't. I could imagine not screwing abs calipers back in the proper way could also cause damage

Fabrik8

Sounds like (lack of) caliper piston adjustment during the pad swap, or very likely a siezed caliper slide pin. I just fixed a buddy's GSR the other month with a similar problem, his had eaten the pad on the inner side and couldn't get everything to line up properly when the new pads were installed. I found the slide pin was frozen, that fixed it.

Chances are the disc is not making full contact with the pad until the wheel is mounted and everything is squared up. So there's an interference problem but it's not fully interfering until the rotor is tightened down by the wheel.

Garrett93

So should I tell him to just go get another caliper? And see if that fixes it?

Fabrik8

No, you tell him to diagnose the problem before replacing stuff. If it's a caliper slide pin, you might just need a new slide pin or maybe a new caliper bracket.

Yep4doors

I think this tends to be a common problem with integra rear calipers

Garrett93

How would he diagnose it?