General Brake Disk Rust

Currently reading:
General Brake Disk Rust

rob191186

New member
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
15
Points
10
Location
United Kingdom.
Hey guys, my brake discs are well rusty, i realise this is because of my uno's age (1994). Anyone know of anyway to clean the rust off our brake discs and caliper. Ive used a wire brush before, but it is very hard work and takes quite a while. Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks
 
Brake discs always rust as they are made from plain steel. Not a lot you can do other than keep replacing them or spend a fortune having some carbon fibre discs made up! Don't think they would be road legal though.

Wire brushing your old ones is about all you can do. Hard work I know.

As for the calipers, on the mk 1 one Unos they are actually made of aluminium so won't rust. Aluminium can oxidise though, this can be seen in the form of white furry deposits. Not sure if Fiat went back to cast iron calipers on the mk 2 Uno's but I wouldn't have thought so.

To get the calipers nice, remove them from the car and soak them with alloy wheel cleaner to get rid of the brake dust. You'll probably have to get out the wire brush again to get them spotless.

Then you could paint them if you want, though keep the pad contact areas bare else you might cause the pads to stick.

By the way, I assume you mean that the rim of the discs are rusty and not the face? The face of the discs should stay nice and shiny due to constant contact with the pads, though you will get the edges and centre bit rusty where the pads don't contact. If your disc face is rusty then you may have a sticking caliper, causing it not to push the pad onto the disc face.

Worth bearing in mind too that if you get the discs wet and don't drive it for a few days then they will show rust very quickly. A look at cars in my local Ford dealer shows even new cars with rusty discs! However, once you drive it about and use the brakes a bit then the pads will remove all the rust leaving them nice and shiny again.
 
Caliper carrier (bit the caliper slides in) is steel, so will rust. Look for rust converter liquid (acid-based) at a hardware shop. E.g. Kurust, Jenolite etc. Wire-brush caliper carrier using angle grinder or similar with wire brush attachment. Ideally leave the parts soaking in an ice-cream container full of the rust converter.

Paint with high-temp silver paint, aerosol cans are pretty cheap, they claim 1200 degrees F, should be enough for that carrier?

As for discs, just replace! Old ones probably too thin anyway - min. thickness about 6-7mm. Use copper grease to prevent rust where disc bolts to the hub. Just a smear, and check the disc runs true by holding a pencil etc. on the caliper carrier and turn the disc. If not true, unbolt and turn 90 degrees, try again.

1994 eh? - that's new by my standards! Here in salt-free New Zealand we have original discs on 1987 Unos, smooth and rust-free but worn wafer-thin... measured some on friend's Uno and they were 4mm - dangerous.

-Alex


'88 Uno Turbo i.e.
'87 Uno 60
'88 Bertone X1/9
'81 X1/9 1500
'92 Alfa Romeo 164 3.0V6
'03 Suzuki SJ50QT (!)
 
Am i right in thinking that these are all the same discs:

  • Front discs on non-turbo
  • Rear discs on Turbos
  • and x1/9 if i remember correctly...
Some aftermarket discs are better for not rusting than standard ones and dont cost that much more. Ive been able to find loads for the rear discs on turbos but none for the fronts of non-turbos.


 
Back
Top