by Tom Ehrhart
The melody of squealing disc brakes has been with us since Day One. The tune need not be an annoying and frustrating one, however. In fact, it need not be one at all. Our cars have always had certain engineering features that eliminated these embarrassing, gad-awful sounds. Some cars, most notably the sedans, had special caliper pistons with a contact area leaning 10 degrees (See Figure 1).
Alpines and Tigers utilize the same principle, but accomplish it in a different way. They use a shim. (See Figure 2). Unfortunately, most shims have been discarded with Father Time. Since figure 2 is drawn actual size, it may be used to make your own. A suggestion for material is any sheet metal similar to factory shims, which were made from cheap sheet metal about 0.017″ thick. Be sure to face the arrow in the direction of wheel rotation while traveling forward.
