How to fix loose calipers?

[CPUNeck]

Remove one of the effected calipers, kinda squeeze the rubber boot that surround the upper and lower "slide pins", remove the pins, and the rubber boots. Be mindful of the boot's orientation (which side of the boot goes to what part, caliper or slide pin)... now take the two removed slide pins and re bolt them to the caliper bracket. What you should have is the two slide pins protruding from the caliper bracket. Make sure you tighten them as usual, then see if you can get ANY movement from those slides what so ever. They should be tight.

If they are tight, either someone as substituted your slides with the wrong ones, or you in fact have "waller-ed out" cavities in your calipers. If you have movement in the slide pins, you may have the wrong bolts securing them to the caliper bracket, or again... the wrong slide pins. Brakes are kind of my specialty, and I've NEVER seen slide pins damage the caliper this severely with out it being OBVIOUS.

One more point, not to step on toes, but at every brake service (when you remove the caliper) you should remove the slid pins, clean out the caliper's cavity, and re grease with a high quality (I only use synthetic base) brake grease. This gives you the opportunity to inspect the rubber boots and clean out the inevitable gunk that gets in there. This is the PRIMARY reason for premature brake failure and catastrophic brake failure. If you've heard of "frozen" calipers, seized slide pins are usually the cause.:smoke:

 

[CDW6212R]

...

One more point, not to step on toes, but at every brake service (when you remove the caliper) you should remove the slid pins, clean out the caliper's cavity, and re grease with a high quality (I only use synthetic base) brake grease. This gives you the opportunity to inspect the rubber boots and clean out the inevitable gunk that gets in there. This is the PRIMARY reason for premature brake failure and catastrophic brake failure. If you've heard of "frozen" calipers, seized slide pins are usually the cause.:smoke:

I agree with that entirely, but........ who exactly ever will clean out those slide pin cavities, ever?

I have a couple of times, mainly from not realizing there was a way to remove the caliper without loosening those bolts. No one considers that when they open up those boots to the air, they are getting debris in there. Everyone assumes that there is no harm in handling that with their filthy hands etc, and then bolting it all back in place. A few people are going to say that they add grease, and that isn't enough.

As said, those need to be cleaned out well and re greased if they are opened up. Well I trust that no one will do that actually, so for those people it's far safer if you can get them to leave those alone. Less harm can be done if they are left tight, and loosen the large caliper/spindle bolts. I appreciate the real advice of pros. But most people skip details like that, and that causes problems. Regards,

 

[CPUNeck]

Touche DON,.... I agree completely with you, if you can't do it right, higher a professional (JK they are a dying breed.

Here is a little cheat for those who would like to do the RIGHT thing, but may not know how... If you have a gun cleaning rod with the eyelet on the end, your golden. I use one of my Glock plastic cleaning rods with about four 2" square patches. Thread the patch through the loop, fold one of the corners over the end of the cleaning rod, spray out the cavity with brake cleaner, spray the cleaning patch down good with brake cleaner, then clean, clean, clean, that bore. Remove the patch, fold the other corner over the rod end, repeat. Then swap the soiled wet patch with a new dry patch, and repeat the bore swabbing with the dry cloth. It should be G2G now. Don't forget to clean out the rubber boot also, and look for damage. A damaged boot is trash, don't even waster your time, get new ones, and I recommend they come from the factory (that's given me the most longevity).

Casper

 

[CDW6212R]

Very good. The trick to car work is learning which parts that you can get away with from a parts store, and which are critical to buy from the manufacturer. There are tons of mechanics and DIY's, with the right knowledge you can usually handle things yourself.