Technical Rear brake caliper tips

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Technical Rear brake caliper tips

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Jan 1, 2007
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Anyone who keeps a Stilo for a few years will likely have to change rear pads or complete calipers. I have replaced 4 or 5 calipers over the 13 years of Stilo ownership and I think I have hit most of the problems that these jobs entail. The topic has been addressed many times before but here are my particular tips:

1. Always use a proper wind back tool for the pistons. The universal ones on ebay are cheap and reliable.

2. Be careful not to tear the piston weather seal when winding it back. This seal can be stuck to the piston and wind with it if it is not freed up before starting wind-back. If the seal tears it is hell's own job doing a repair and a new caliper will be needed by most people. After winding back the piston make sure the the two indentations on the piston face are sitting horizontally. This is necessary for the piston to slide past the locating pip on the inner pad when you re-attach the caliper.

3. the springs that the pads sit in should be well greased with a silicone type grease. The pad hangers themselves can get very rusty and rust can build up under the springs. This should be scraped off with a strong screwdriver and the new surfaces treated with grease.

4. Be careful if you decide to fit new caliper bolts into the floating pins. Some new bolts have a plastic material on the threads as a locking device but this can make the bolts very hard to screw into the floating pins. My suggestion is to remove the plastic coating and use a bit of liquid Loctite instead. The bolts will be much easier to tighten up.

5. Check that the handbrake cables move freely in their casings. You have to slacken off the nut near the handbrake inside the car anyway and this can give enough slack to see if the cables are free. My cables are plastic coated but it does no harm to smear them with silicone grease.

6. Replacing a caliper is fairly simple but be sure to start loosening the brake fluid pipe nut at the caliper before undoing the caliper pin bolts. This nut can be pretty tight. Once loosened and with the pin bolts removed you can withdraw the caliper, hold the nut with an open jaw spanner, twist the caliper off it and twist a new caliper on.
 
I would add.. check out the price of new sliding pins (i.e. not much) and if yours look remotely nasty, buy new ones. Having said that, the Stilo caliper pins haven't given me as much trouble as those on other cars.

Biggest "joy" moment I've had with the Stilo calipers is discovering the pad spring clips are stainless steel so never rust and can be re-used if they're not deformed. Just clean them up both sides with a toothbrush-sized wire brush. But if your pads come with new stainless clips, use those.

Recently I found that some pads come with new springs that are black-anodised coated. I suspect these are mild steel so I've not fitted a set yet.. but if they are, they'll turn to red oxide fairly promptly and would need replacing every time.

Good quality pads (I tend to go Brembo) are not necessarily much more expensive than the very cheapo ones.. (shop around) and fit much better in the caliper, which makes them less likely to jam later on.

Luckily Stilo calipers are plentiful and anywhere from £30 (budget £50). If you consider a seal kit is about £20 and might not fix the problem you're having, it's a no-brainer to fit new calipers if yours are giving proper aggro'.


Ralf S.
 
Agree with all the above but would add not to be tempted to use copper slip on the pad slides as some people do but proper brake grease ... high temperature lithium.
 
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