Does anyone know where I can get the white (lithium based?) grease used to lubricate the caliper slide pins on the brakes?
It's the stuff that comes in a small foil sachet with the caliper overhaul kits. Audi are willing to sell me the stuff for £35 VAT for 100gms. I would prefer to pay less. It doesn't seem to be stocked by the local motor factors, and I don't need anymore brake overhaul kits.
If it makes any difference, the fronts are Girling G60s, the rears are Lucas 38mm 'Collette' calipers.
Thanks,
Ian.
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I always use a small amount of copper grease on slide pins, its never been a problem, in fact I swear by copper grease on virtually anything, but if you really want white grease any Motor Factor should stock it. £35 for grease, tell them to insert it in their exhaust pipes ! ;-)
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Don't - really! - Don't use copper grease to lube brake rubber parts. On some types of caliper, notably Vauxhalls, it causes the rubber to swell, and the caliper slide or piston to stick. Don't do it!
Lucas used to do small inexpensive tubes of rubber grease which were often stocked by good motor factors.
Number_Cruncher
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To reinforce N_C's post (as if it needs it:)) I have found that copper grease also swells the rubber on MX5 brakes.
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Last time I had to buy some (for a Vauxhall) I purchased it from my local car parts & accessory shop.
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Most cycle shops sell it at around £5 for a big tub
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My local Motor cycle dealer sells small sachets of silicone brake grease for a few pence. Apparently motor cycle brakes need frequent maintenance.
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Copper grease is OK on the slide pins-nothing was said about putting it on rubber.
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jc2, as the pins are in close contact with the rubber, some will inevitably get on it.
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From the caliper pins???you're only supposed to put a smear on-not half the tin!!!
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I can only speak from experience of working on Vauxhall calipers. Other calipers may well be different.
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Confusion reigns. There are two types of calliper pins. The ones that keep the pads in place and those that single sided piston callipers slide back and forth on. The OP gives the impression that it is the latter and they usually have rubber sleeves that can be affected by mineral grease.
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OK, I have used Copper Ease on caliper slide pins for years without problems, I don't know what has caused these problems for you, but I contacted Comma who market Copper Ease, told them of your concerns and this is their reply:-
Quote:
"Thank you for your enquiry regarding Copper Ease, I have double checked with our Laboratory and we have not heard of this and neither has the manufacturer of the material. In fact they point out that as the base fluid in the product is mineral oil they wouldn?t expect any seal compatibility issues."
End Quote.
So, they do not expect problems with rubber components, perhaps you chaps who know differently would tell us the basis for your claims that this product harms the rubber sleeves on caliper slides.
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There's only a little rubber bellows on the slider pin, so who cares if it swells a little?
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The front brakes on my son's MX5 were binding, not badly but enough to notice that one wheel was hotter than the other. The caliper slide pins were dirty, one of which slides in its own rubber sleeve, so I stripped both sides, cleaned the relevant components up and reassembled using copper grease sparingly as I had been doing for years on other cars. All was fine for a couple of weeks then the symptoms reoccured. My son asked one of his friends, a full time, time served mechanic who works in his father's independant garage. He said that the copper grease was the wrong thing to use, it caused the rubber to swell. He stripped the relevant parts down and reassembled them with rubber friendly grease. They have been fine since. this was approximately 6 months ago.
I must admit that up until then the possibility of this happening had never crossed my mind.
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>>the basis for your claims...
For once, I have no mathematics, no engineering, no physics, no theory to offer. Only experience. I've had to replace a fair number of Vauxhall caliper slides (Mantas, Cavaliers, Carltons, etc) which had locked up because of copperslip previosly applied by well meaning people. So, I know that it is the wrong grease for use with rubber.
If there is metal to metal, then copperslip os OK.
If there's rubber, then rubber grease is appropriate. It's fairly obvious really!, and it isn't expensive.
Number_Cruncher
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meths and a cloth , bring them up to the original chrome finish no need for lubrication
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Very broadly speaking, there are two types of sliding caliper in use which have differing lubrication requirements.
Girling calipers (and clones) are of the type where the sliders are metal on metal protected by "rubber" bellows. They can be further identified by the need to remove at least one bolt locked with thread locking compound in order to change the pads. The bellows is made of a mineral oil resistant material and the sliders can be lubricated with a copper loaded anti-seize compound, although if the bellows are intact, this should not be required.
Teves calipers and a few derivatives have their slider pins mounted in rubber bushings. These really are rubber and will be wrecked by the use of mineral grease. With these calipers, a 7 mm AF hexagon key is usually required to remove the slider pins, often covered with a plasic cap. Silicone grease used sparingly is fine for these calipers - minimal lubrication is required to prevent the rubber binding to and picking up on the slider pin.
No mineral based lubricant should be allowed anywhere near the "hydraulic" rubbers and dust seals which, for unjustifyable historical reasons are still made from natural rubber. Only Citroen and a few others were brave enough to use neoprene seals which allowed a non hygroscopic mineral fluid to be used in their braking systems.
659.
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Thank you all for your replies. I'll be off to the local bike shop tomorrow.
The calipers are exactly as 659FBE describes Girling calipers. Even though the rubber boots are intact, a couple of the pins are showing slight traces of rust. Mind you, it might be copper grease from a previous owner...
Thanks,
Ian.
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Castrol Red Rubber Grease ............. tinyurl.com/23vdqb
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L\'escargot.
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I am quite happy to acknowledge your experiences with this product and personally will desist from using copper grease on these components in future. Further, I will inform Comma of your comments as obviously they, and many d-i-yers out there, from your experiences, are unaware that there is a problem in these cases and for safetys sake they should warn people not to use their product on brake slide pins.
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