How I service caliper slides for smooth operation

[Fab1]

Hi guys I thought I'd document the above as frozen caliper slides are quite common in the automotive/marine industry in the hope that it will help those of you willing to diy and save a few quid in the process.

This job was done on the rear brake calipers on my car as I was getting a intermittent squeel that was a real annoyance and suspected either a frozen piston,caliper slides,glazed pads or all three but it applies to trailers with brakes of all sorts also as I'm sure you guys with braked trailers are constantly battling to keep them operational with the constant immersion in salt water.

Before you start please jack your car/trailer up safely and place a safety stand underneath a secure point and chock the wheels to eliminate any dangers.

These are the basic tools and materials you'll need-

Before jacking the car/trailer off the ground you'll need to crack the wheel nuts loose to prevent the wheel from spinning once of the ground.

Here I have the car jacked/chocked and secured with a safety stand-

I have taken the wheel off and sprayed the entire rotor and caliper down with brake Cleaner to remove harmful brake dust and have wire brushed the wheel studs-

Brake caliper usually are fastened with four bolts,2 bolts fasten the caliper bracket to the knuckle and 2 bolts go through the caliper slides and fasten the other half of the caliper to the bracket.

It's the 2 caliper bolts that go through the caliper slides that you want to remove.(You'll see 2 bolts with rubber dust seals).

Here I'm removing the caliper slide bolts-

Close up of the caliper slide bolt with the dust seal in place-

What you want to do is remove the top caliper slide bolt which will allow you to pivot the caliper back to expose the brake pads as shown-

The brake pads can simply be removed now along with any anti-rattle shims and placed aside-

Now remove the lower caliper slide bolt and hang the caliper up with a bungee/wire out of the way so its weight is not hanging on the brake hose-

Know simply pull out the caliper slide pins from there bore and give them and the boots a good clean and lube them with the rubber grease or alternatively use silicon paste-

After a good cleaning-

All rotors have a minimum thickness to allow for machining if need be,for safety reasons you want them within specification.

Normally they have markings in the rotors themselves like in this case it states the minimum thickness being 8mm-

Here im measuring the thickness with a micrometer,it reads 10.35mm well within spec-

Now everything's been cleaned,lubed its time to assemble everything back.

Here I've applied cooper anti-seize to the ends of the brake pads where they make contact on their seats to minimise noise-

The caliper slides lubed and in place along with the pads-

A little copper grease applied to bottom caliper slide bolt with the job finished ready to refit the wheel-

Took the car out for a test drive and no more squeeling.

Thanks for viewing as if your having issues with your boat trailer brakes these methods can be applied and hopefully it will help some of you willing to give it a go.

Please note that I did not replace the brake pads as they had plenty of material and did NOT need to push the piston back in as shown-If you need new brake pads this piston will need to be compressed back into its bore by opening the master cylinder reservoir and squeezing the piston with a g clamp.

An alternative method is pinching the rubber brake line with long nose vide grips that have rubber pieces of hose on the end to protect the brake hose and cracking open this bleeder on the caliper and squeezing the piston with a g clamp to compress the piston in its bore.