J160 Brake pads

[Guest Karl FAETH]

Any J160 users out there that have had problems with brake pads cracking. Ours has done about 80+ hours and I noticed that there is a small crack in the top of the pads leading down to the 1st rivet. Brakes too harshly applied?

[Guest Fred Bear]

Karl - did you fit the brake pads yourself during building? If so, you may have simply been a bit rough when you fastened your rivets. It's a very common problem with the pads as they are bordering on quite brittle. It takesabout 45 minutes to change a set of pads on a J160. They are about $10 per pad so it's good to have a few spare sets. Perhaps 80 hours might be getting near end of life for them? Remember that it might look like there's plenty of pad left, however remember that the rivets will take up some of the remaining pad and before you realise, you'll have metal on metal! If you let them run down too far and don't tighten the bolts, you will end up with a situation of the brake piston coming out too far, cocking to the side then releasing the brake fluid which will result in a total break failure, unless you have dual pistons. Certainly something to watch out for.

 

 

[BigPete]

Hi Karl,

 

I checked my J160c's brakes today after reading your post.

 

My Jabiru has 94 hours on it and the pads look fine. (I didn't remove them, so I'm going on what I coud see).

 

regards

 

 

[Guest Fred Bear]

Depends on your runway conditions and usage. A school aircraft on bitumen may only get around 50-80 hours out of a set whereas on grass you're talking a long time. Personally, I'll get up to 200 from a set, however those new "jagged" disks will chew through a set in no time flat!

 

 

[Geoff]

Changed the pads on our J160 today Nealy bugged at 352h and I thought we were being a bit rough on the brakes,maybe not.

 

 

[Guest Karl FAETH]

Thank you for the replies. The comments re rivets are quite correct. I think 150 hours is a good time for us to change the pads.