Front brakes drag

[Peter Schulz]

At 08:13 PM 6/11/2002 -0700, Justin Olson wrote:
>I had the front wheels off today. The pads and rotor's
>still look good. The squeeking doesn't seem to slow
>the car down very muvh so I think they are just barely
>touching the rotors. How do I regrease the pins? Do I
>have to take the calipers all the way off the to do
>it?
>Thanks for all the help.
>
>Justin Olson
>
>
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Justin:

"looking good" means nothing - you need to check the operation of the caliper.
The caliper acts like a vise - and since the are dragging, they are not
releasing properly.

Chances are that either the guide pins are rusted and/or need to be
greased, or the caliper piston has issues.

You do need to remove the caliper (the two guide pin bolts) to service the
pins - you need a 13mm or 15 mm wrench or socket to remove the bolts
holding the pins and another slim 15mm to hold the pins from rotating ( I
use a Park 15mm bicycle cone wrench - it's about 1/8 inch wide - a standard
open ended wrench will be too wide)

make sure that you support the caliper (because the guide pins hold it to
the caliper carrier) with a wire hanger or something similar to say the
spring - letting the caliper hang by the brake hose is a fast way to a
damaged hose.

Pull the pins out of their dust boots carefully - polish them with a wire
brush/polishing wheel to remove rust, apply some hi temp brake grease and
reassemble.

A properly working caliper "floats" - you should be able to push on the
side of the caliper and move it about on the guide pins.

The Bentley manual goes through this info in detail - if you do not own one
I suggest investing the money and getting a set -

HTH

-Peter

Peter Schulz
1990 CQ
1991 200 20v TQW indigo mica
1991 200 20v TQW titanium grey
Chelmsford, MA USA
peschulz at cisco.com