Caliper Maintenance

[mitsumi]

Hi,

I just did a change oil today and i wanted to test my wheels if the bearings etc are still fine.

I depressed the hand brakes and my car is lifted. Now after trying to push the wheels to spin is it normal that the wheel spins freely but slowly like the breaks are still pressed? or it should spin fast when i spin it?

And when is the right time to clean or do maintenance with the front brake calipers, changing the rubbers, cleaning the pins and bushings.

[foama]

With the handbrake off and the car up, rear wheels can be easily turned by hand. They should turn freely without any resistance or noises.
Turning a front wheel is different, because the driveshaft and differential is being rotated, and that causes a bit of drag. Usually you can hear slight noises if a dragging front brake is turned by hand.
I always look at the pins, rubber gaiters, etc. when changing or checking linings or rotors.
The surfaces of the caliper bracket, particularly where spring clamps and linings touch, should be smooth. A little sandpaper helps cleaning. The pins as the holes for the pins should be absolutely perfectly cleaned, and only very lightly greased with silicone grease. The grooves that mate the rubber also cleaned well. Then the rubber parts come back on.
Caution: do not use more than a minimum of grease on the pins, and only use silicone grease! Regular mineral based grease will cause the little rubber ring of the lower pin to slowly swell in time and it will then block any movement. That in turn defeats the purpose of the pins and brake drag will be a result. Using too much grease on the pins will displace the air in the holes, and caliper movement on the pin will be impared causing draging brakes. The FSM has good illustrations.

[mitsumi]

Thanks @foama new learning for me.

10 years of owning my first car and still learning new things from this forums!

[foama]

@mitsumi: Today I am always learning stuff, and thats completely normal.

I grew up in an automobile workshop in the sixties. Just about everything was repaired, much different than today. Today they replace alternators, starters, waterpumps when they give trouble. The mark up on new parts is enormous, pity on the car owners. Back then we replaced alternator regulators, carbon brushes of starter motors, bearings of water pumps, and so on. We reconditioned worn out engines, gearboxes and differentials, lubed (greased) chassis, etc., that was normal. Engines of VW, BMC Morris and Austins, Triumph/Standard, MG, Renault, Holden, etc. lasted max 70000miles before they heavily smoked. That was the norm then, all with stone-age engine oils compared to now.

When we think there is nothing more to learn, is when we have truely become senile, and that has nothing to do with age at all! Some folks in their late thirties are so senile, I would never expect to get like that if I lived to become a hundred years old.

[Fummins]

Great advice foama. I know both young and old senile people. Thankfully many of the craziest I know of haven’t figured out how to reproduce.

[foama]

In these parts, unfortunately those that reproduce most are those you would least want to be reproduced. Fortunately some of their offspring have more sense than their parents...