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They can benefit from greasing, and they can fail to work after pads have been changed. So do you strip them down once or twice a year and grease them and check they wind in and out? I can imagine Cliff might, but doubt anybody else does...
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Nope never done, can't see me doing it either.
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My cars got a check engine light, so if any part of the engine, like the brakes, has a problem, the light comes on, but to be honest just drive a bit more carefully and as long as it gets through the MOT it'll be fine.
:-)
I don't know if i'd be happy doing this. The pins on the brembo monoblocks on the 7er shouldn't be greased (only cleaned), and there's nowhere else to grease, except maybe the pad backs but coppaslip lasts between pad changes in my experience so far. The runners on the VAG calipers shouldn't be greased either, only cleaned.
Winding them in and out sounds like asking for trouble.
Just use the brake pedal properly. Prevent most problems happening in the first place. Paint your calipers red, makes them go faster and you get to clean them every week - forces you to do a quick inspection.
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Car brakes are beyond my comfort/competence zone for DIY. Have however had caliper failures on my BX - smoking pads etc.
Best avoided!!
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If available, I tend to fit a new seal kit and apply some rubber grease to the pistons when I've bought a second hand car - it's part of the "once over" I give them to help make sure the car can be put into service, and will be reliable for us.
For the brakes, it's typically, new pads, new discs, clean and grease caliper pistons / slides, and renew the fluid.
On the Audi, I went a bit further, because I suspected that someone had refilled the brakes with the wrong fluid at some point. The Audi got a new master cylinder, new flexis, and a new brake apportioning cylinder as well.
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Brakes that work properly are a top safety priority and any deterioration is instantly noticeable to a press-on driver.
Like others over the years I have neglected brakes until they went off (even sometimes until they made metal-to-metal noises), and over the years have grappled with them hands-on many times, disc and drum, replacing seals or whole cylinders or calipers and going through all the bleeding bleeding and stuff. And very tiresome, filthy and bruising I always found it.
But there's no point whatsoever in not doing it properly. N_C is right as usual. But I get someone else to do it these days.
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Ever since I had a series of BL FWD cars, I found it worthwhile to 'work' the pistons on both the front calipers and rear pistons. The Fiats I've had definitely needed it on the fronts just before each MOT.
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I do as all good drivers do: remove calipers, grease the slides and repaint every spring. Also remove the leather covers on the leaf springs, wire brush all the dirt off, re grease and reattach leather covers, grease all grease nipples, change the engine oil every 1,000 miles and adjust the tappets and magneto settings.
:-)
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Don't forget new bootlaces for the man with the red flag.
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And one must make sure the flag is nice and clean.
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The calipers come off, everything is checked, cleaned up and refitted when the pads are changed.
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Unless I notice any deterioration in performance, I tend to just inspect carefully at pad renewal time i.e. check slides are free, clean and grease, and make sure the piston goes easily and smoothly back into the caliper. That said, with the very reasonable price of reconditioned calipers on the cars I've owned, balanced against time constraints, I don't go down the road of stripping and rebuilding. Bung a "new" caliper on, bleed it through, and the jobs a good 'un.
Motorcycle calipers tend to be much more temperamental, and built / rustproofed to a much lower standard, much like the machines they are fitted to. I used to remove the calipers and clean the exposed piston surfaces at least once a year.
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The logic I use in deciding to renew the seals is that;
the seal kit is usually very cheap;
I'm stripping the brake and replacing the fluid anyway;
calipers usually seize up after the seal fails and lets water in;
if I can grease the piston and put new rubber there, I can be happy that the calipers are OK for some time.
If you wait for the caliper and piston to rust and sieze up, then a seal kit is no good to you, and you need an entire new caliper. While if you fit a new seal kit before the caliper has any trouble, it is much more likely to work well.
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I've recently had to have a rear one unseized. The brake pad on the o/s looked fine and dandy, which it was, because it wasn't working. The one on the inside was doing all the work and got down to the metal.
It went through at least one MOT like that (only do 4,000 - 4,500 miles p.a. and mostly in town driving).
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>> My cars got a check engine light, so if any part of the engine, like
>> the brakes, has a problem, the light comes on,
My brakes are on the wheels, not the engine ;0)
I used to maintain them but the last few cars I've had have been newer cars with manufacturer's warranties still in place and I haven't touched them whilst still under warranty.
I haven't changed a brake pad/serviced a caliper since 2004.
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>> So do you strip them down once or twice a year and grease them
>> and check they wind in and out? I can imagine Cliff might, but doubt anybody
>> else does...
>>
I'm puzzled by that remark, and indeed the thread.
On mine there is nothing to maintain. It is just a hunk of rusty cast iron with pistons sticking out each side of the disc.
The only maintenance I do is when I replace the pads. I make sure that the pistons move freely, if they are stuck I put a drop of brake fluid round the seal and work them in and out until sliding freely. Lightly grease the sliding edges of the pads, pop them in, new retaining pins if they are rusted, and that's it for another 2 years.
What's this "winding in and out"?
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Good hose down of the entire underbody every spring, having kept it hosed off regularly during the winter anyway so salt doesn't get too ingrained, that's the stuff that causes most problems.
As many above, full strip out, inspection and clean up, grease coppaslip and rubber grease where appropriate, reassemble, fluid replacement if needed, inspect brake flexibles and pipes, waxoyl brake pipes.
Undo the disc grub screws and retighten as well while i'm there, very annoying when they snap off when you need to replace disc, oh and paint calipers with black Hammerite when needed.
It's surprising the state things can get in when neglected and why removal is needed for thorough inspection, i've removed pads which looked fine on cursory inspection from the rear of a MB estate and the pad material simply crumbled off the backing plate, rust had taken hold and lifted the pad material, it was the lump of rust keeping it together and preventing it from being forced out under braking.
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Do you maintain your brake calipers? - Robin O'Reliant
