Dont make this mistake when you grease you caliper sliding pins | typical mechanic TIP

the truest statement ever from a mechanic... "less is more"!

My break pin won’t go back in how do I fix this

Aircraft mechanic here. Planes are becoming the same way.

Just remove the rubber ring. Problem solved

I found the carbon fiber ceramic set up heats up a lot and needs frequent grease more so than metallic

Side issue. My wife's brakes have little rubber booties to protect against brake dust entering the caliper pin channel. But one wasn't installed properly at the factory. By the time I discovered it the brake dust had entered and it had been jammed for a while causing uneven brake wear. It was fixable but very hard to yank out. So make sure if you have rubber bootie protectors that they are reinstalled correctly.

I am a cheap bastard. I grease my caliper pins with plain old wheel bearing grease.

Hi RB, I totally agree! Do not use too much. Dave...

Ok. Then how do you fix it

Thank you for this video. Excellent exposition of a little-known but very important issue.

After brake service, my car's brake felt 'spongy' and found the brake pedal going past its regular stopping point. I got concerned and took it back. The technician said it's normal for this type of car (?!). Finally the service manager offered to redo the brake service. He explained to me that they found there was too much grease on the slider pins and this caused the spongy brake. They also bled the lines just in case.

I made the biggest mistake I’ve ever made with brakes today. I correctly applied the lefty loosey, but didn’t account for the fact that I was looking at it from the front and couldn’t figure out why it was on so tight. Yes, I’m an idiot.

when you apply the brakes the pins travel away from the bracket not further in

nice tip

Thank you! I think that happened to me. My cars pads are very uneven AND had differing greases between pins. A half arsed job.

I used anti seize on my caliper pins, and they indeed seized, I recommend using "red N tacky" by Lucas.

USEFULL THANK YOU

That's why there's flat spots on the sides of the pins. Also, there's no seals along the pin and it's not an interference fit so there's clearance for grease to escape. Good concern but invalid. Pump it in with your hands a few times to ensure it's bottoming out.

The wife always gets upset unless I put lube on the end of my pin and and the sides also..........good info for the brakes, not so much for the wife.

if the sliding bolt housing is gunked up, can you clean it out thoroughly with brake cleaner and drill bit (I saw your other very good video on how to clean)? Once the housing is clean, only apply a thin layer on the sliding bolt and nothing in the housing, will restore proper even braking? Thanks

I would think cleaning everything out of the chambers where the pins slide into greased, would be much more important.

I never regrease the pins. I just move them up and down all the way and spin them in place to redistribute the grease.

the slider pin with the subber ? sleeve will hydraulic almost immediately . I replace the rubber sleeve with a couple of small O rings . no more hydraulicing .

Seems there's some here who think the bore will take the extra grease, there's plenty of clearance while others don't believe that.
I'll say the best would be to do all these the same way on all pins.
Likely the best way is for all to be done with no grease on the end.

Did he just say er! eh! At the end? Carlos Mencia, are you trying to be a mechanic like when you tried to be a comedian? 😅

Thank you

When the brake is operated the slides are moving out not in, to pull the outer pad onto the outer surface of the disc, a small amount of grease on the end of the pin makes absolutely no difference.

It's that pin that has the rubber seal on the tip - that seal will compress with too much grease in front of it and will not allow grease to escape as some have stated in other comment. You're tip here is so important!! I learned it the hard way on my first couple Mazdas, which had crappy brakes to start with.

Thanks for pointing this out, never given this thought before and it will help me with other repairs😊.

There is enough clearance so if you completely fill it caliper with grease it will push out and go in the rubber bellows. Low budget mechanic knows more than this dude.

Too much grease can squeeze out by pressing on brakes but the pressure can make the bottom of the boot pop out and leave a small opening for debris. Ask me how i know!

Here's another tip: You don't need that much grease...good Lord!

So by that logic, you can put grease at the tips of both pins to even the wear on pads

Genius. Great tip. I didn't even know people were greasing the bolt.

I'm pretty sure that he is working on a Dodge or Chrysler van with the double piston caliper there...anyhow I can totally back up what he says..i got a bit too much grease on that lower pin and it would not move in or out..my wife ( van driver) says hey the brakes you just fixed are making a funny noise...so I took them back apart and I had to use pliers to pull that pin out. It had a vacuum inside the caliper pin bore. It made a POP sound when it finally came out. I wiped off some of the excess grease and it was good to go. This really is one of those times when less is more..a little goes a long way.

Awesome to-the-point thank you

great tip thank you

Question...the pin with the moveable roller bearing/shim. Does it go on the bottom of the calliper or the top? I ordered a complete set of callipers from online, passenger calliper is good enough, the driver side is casted incorrectly which allows the guide pin to freely spin/no backstop so I took everything apart & now I lost track of which pin goes where. The lube that was pre-installed caused rust. Thankfully, I did my due diligence! If you can assist & let me know, I'd greatly appreciate it!

that's actually super relevant and useful information. I experienced this on a vehicle I was servicing today that had this issue. resolved.

So you said that the grease doesn't compress, but it will get displaced won't it from the pressure from the caliper tightening on braking?

Great videos on the MDX by the way.

The real question is about the rubber on one of the pins and why.

Thank you for this! 👍
A lot of naysayers here in the comments: some seem unable to fill in the blanks where you were unable to explain every little detail in such a short video, and some seem to be deliberately avoiding acknowledging the specific point you were trying to make just so they can contradict you... those are the real gaslighters, and we'll just ignore them.
I'm not a mechanic by trade but I've been doing my own mechanic work for +35yrs. and I've wondered on these pins how much is too much. I've been guilty of putting a decent gob of Grease in the hole but mainly for corrosion prevention. I guess just a thin coat through the guide hole would be sufficient. I've always wondered whether too much in one whole more than the other would cause the pads to rest unevenly on the rotor during non-braking. I've seen uneven pad wear and wondered if that was the cause. This is the first video or any source of advice that I've seen or heard that addressed this specifically.
Good job and thank you!

i put engine oil instead of grease and the brake is smooth and better..

You're wrong the excess grease would not go all the way in.

very nice tips thanks alot wow

I have a question. Does the pin with the little rubber damper sleeve go in the upper or lower hole?

When you pull out the pins, there’s always grease on the end. It’s typically cleaner than the grease on the sides. I call shenanigans on this entire video. Diagonal wear is caused by binding, not have grease on the end of the pin.

Great tip. Thank you and I will use it tomorrow.

Better to lube the pins every time you change pads and in the climate where I drive I do this twice a year when changing Winter/Summer tyres/wheels. If you don’t do this you end up with stuck slider pins and can destroy brake disks and pads.

Maybe in a case with new or lightly used pins the grease on the tip of pin can be causing problems but old pins are worn out so that the pin hole is not so snug fit anymore. Of course too much grease is not right and I lube the pins so that there are no lumps of grease anywhere but evenly applied grease coating on the pin. Thanks for the video anyway.