Somewhat urgent question about the rear brake pads
 

I just changed my rear pads with Hawk HPS & have a couple questions:

1. After screwing the piston as far back as it would go, I still couldn't fit the caliper around the pads unlesss I left off one of the backing shims. The Hawk HPS's appear to have something that look like shims already on them but there's no literature with them & I know I used the backing shims when I replaced the fronts (also with the Hawk HPS). Do the HPS have built in shims? Are the Mazda shims necessary? What purpose do they serve? Has anyone else run into the same problem?

2. I took a quick spin around the block and, low and behold, it felt like my parking brake was engaged (because the pads barely fit between the caliper and rotor - had to push pretty hard to get the caliper around them) and were quite hot (surprise surprise) when I got out of the car. Should I remove the other shim as well - the one on the inside pad - to give a little more room? Should I just drive it until a few thousanths get scraped off? Will I do damage to my brake rotor if I drive them until a few thousanths rub off?

Any help would be appreciated - the sooner the better as I'm heading down to Gardena (about 20 - 25 miles each way) tomorrow and don't want to scrwe anything up.

I sure as heck wouldn't drive with the pads rubbing. If it looks like the pads have shims built in and they aren't fitting like they should with two Mazda shims on them then I think it's a sure thing that you should take one shim off per pad.

The Mazda shims are unecessary. Just install the pads the way they came. I have the same exact pads and had the same exact question before. Good luck.

Yeah thatoneguy is right, you need them for the front (they squeal like a banshee without them), but for the rear (when using Hawk HPS pads) they are not necessary. Apparantly Hawk has integrated them into the pad, I'm assuming they will do this to the fronts too eventually. Make sure to grease them though, otherwise they will squeal.