After cleaning my brakes for the past week came to see how corroded everything was.
The rust on the calipers was successfully brushed away, all the much was brushed as well.
But the caliper pins (the ones that hold the pads) and the anti-rattle springs were horribly corroded.
Cleaned them as I could but am planning to replace them anyway.
The anti-rattle springs I’ll have to replace with standards, but, why are these pins made of plain steel?
Does anybody make an alternative in like marine grade alloy?
Should be easy to manufacture, after all, they don’t do any force (but need to withstand hi temps).
Maddog?
Is the marine garde alloy able to resist the hi temps seen down there?
best thing to do is to go to your local machine shop with a sample and ask them to make them up for you in stainless 316
shouldn’t cost you more than �20 for all 4
Steve, I’m pretty sure they are only for positioning and don’t take any/much load, stainless 316 is a much stronger steel than the standard mild steel they use, so you’ll have no problem with replacing it with Stainless
I,ve got 4-pot Hi-Spec calipers on my 306GTI and just replaced the pads.The pins were badly corroded and a s*d to remove.Hi-Spec sent me some replacements in stainless steel which is all they do now so that seems to be the way to go.
best thing to do is to go to your local machine shop with a sample and ask them to make them up for you in stainless 316
shouldn’t cost you more than �20 for all 4
Heh Heh - this is Aberdeen, the “Oil Capital of Europe”. Machinists don’t get outta bed for less than �10,000/hr
had to ring a main dealer for a price today and out of curiosity asked him for the price on the brake pad pins - �2.89 each.
Although do like the thought of some made from titanium! Just looking through the hop up bling parts catalogue for remote control cars - there might be a similarly sized part in the suspension/drivetrain that might fit or be made to fit!
s/steel would be the way to go…even then though, deposits from the brake pads can build up on the pins making them akward to get out if they are not tended to for a while.
This may actually be half of your problem as the hard deposits can very ofetn look like corrosion. I thought the pins on the brembos I have on my audi were corroded and heavily pitted until I cleaned them up and realised they were made from stainless (doh).
I always find it helps to have a can of ‘brake cleaner’ close to hand when doing this job. If the pins dont want to knock out with relative ‘ease’, or they look to be exceptionally built up with crap then I will give them a quick blasting with the cleaner, leave it for 5 minutes to soak in before having another go. The pins will usually come straight out after this no trouble.
Its also good to use on the discs when the holes become blocked with the hard deposits.