proper way to shim brake pads?

98 145,000 miles. Had the loose pad knock on driver side. Now new rotors, pads, calipers & hardware. All lubed properly etc. After install had problem with driver side pad catching weird and kind of grinding when apply brakes. The new pads came with shims.
The pad instructions said to shim the trailing edge of the pads only. But the guide rails are worn the most on the leading edge. Any problems with shimming this end of the pads? Or should I forget the shims, take the knuckle to welder, and have metal put on the leading edge guide?
I searched but could not find much on the use of pad shims.

xray1971 said:

98 145,000 miles. Had the loose pad knock on driver side. Now new rotors, pads, calipers & hardware. All lubed properly etc. After install had problem with driver side pad catching weird and kind of grinding when apply brakes. The new pads came with shims.
The pad instructions said to shim the trailing edge of the pads only. But the guide rails are worn the most on the leading edge. Any problems with shimming this end of the pads? Or should I forget the shims, take the knuckle to welder, and have metal put on the leading edge guide?
I searched but could not find much on the use of pad shims.

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Last year, I installed a set of Centric Posi-Quiet pads on a friend’s 2000 XJ. His guide rails were worn too and had a knock, when applying the brakes.
The new pads came with shims and instructions seem to be the same as what came with your pads.
Using a set of feeler gauges, we fitted the shims, as instructed, and set the gap to specs. The brakes are still working fine, after almost a year, with no knocking.
[FONT=&quot]The shims are included to tighten the gap on worn guides, something most manufacturers fail to include.
I would suggest trying the shims first before attempting to weld the guide rails. The shims worked for us.[/FONT]

I usually just clean up the guides and build up weld on them and then grind them down with a flapper wheel to cover over the worn spots.

The directions that came with mine used an illustration that doesn't mesh with the Jeep, and referred to the leading edge as either the trailing edge, or load bearing end. Ignoring all of that, I just put the shims where the rails were worn- figuring that this would keep the pads in their original location.

on my knuckles, the front(rear) surface is where the gouges are worn in, rather than on the top/bottom surfaces (where the shim goes) so I just left mine in the baggie :dunno: