Explorer_PL
Explorer Addict
- Joined
- November 16, 2007
- Messages
- 2,914
- Reaction score
- 221
- City, State
- Rockland County, NY
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 06EB V8
The other night I was swapping the front hub on my 06. Simple task requiring removing the caliper, caliper bracket and the rotor.
I replaced the front rotors and pads using CarQuest stuff earlier this year, maybe 10-15k miles ago. At that time I "reconditioned" the pins and the brackets. Took both brackets on the bench, removed the guide pins, clean them up to the shine, use a skinny screwdriver with a piece of thin cloth wrapped on it and plenty of brake cleaner and cleaned the guide holes in the brackets. Then I applied caliper grease, installed new rubber boots, and they were sliding very nicely.
To my surprise, first of all, the rotors and the pads are in pretty bad shape. Rotors are grooved from the pads, indicating very soft metal used for the rotors. The pads still have 80% material left but are chipped and very flaky, in essence - very cheap materials. I have used eBay sets (rotors and pads) in the past and they performed way better, the only downside was lots of dust on the wheels.
Question:
How do you properly recondition the caliper brackets ? What grease should I use ? Any special cleaning tools ? I do not want to buy new pre-assembled brackets if not necessary.
Any advice appreciated.
Thanks
I replaced the front rotors and pads using CarQuest stuff earlier this year, maybe 10-15k miles ago. At that time I "reconditioned" the pins and the brackets. Took both brackets on the bench, removed the guide pins, clean them up to the shine, use a skinny screwdriver with a piece of thin cloth wrapped on it and plenty of brake cleaner and cleaned the guide holes in the brackets. Then I applied caliper grease, installed new rubber boots, and they were sliding very nicely.
To my surprise, first of all, the rotors and the pads are in pretty bad shape. Rotors are grooved from the pads, indicating very soft metal used for the rotors. The pads still have 80% material left but are chipped and very flaky, in essence - very cheap materials. I have used eBay sets (rotors and pads) in the past and they performed way better, the only downside was lots of dust on the wheels.
Question:
How do you properly recondition the caliper brackets ? What grease should I use ? Any special cleaning tools ? I do not want to buy new pre-assembled brackets if not necessary.
Any advice appreciated.
Thanks