- Joined
- Feb 24, 2010
- Messages
- 6,131
- Country Flag
It's been a long time coming that I have needed to check my brakes. Seal kit arrived from Ian along with 3 pistons (just in case) and a 4th piston from Mr-T.
After fitting alternator, I attacked the driver's side calliper. Easy off and onto bench.
Having seen Tony's not so long ago, I was expecting mine to be worse (hence the 4 spare pistons).
Pop off the seal and ooh, what's that? A cir-clip. Only the revised 120's had the cir-clip to hold the rubber seal in place. Wonder why I have them...
Anyway, off with the clips, seals and out with the pistons. They could have been pulled out by a baby with 2 teeth.
Bar a bit of surface rust, they are fine. Some wire brushing on the calliper to clean that up, some emery paper on the surface rust on the pistons and a good clean, time for new seals.
LB's air being put to good use. Reinforces my want for an airtank.
The seal kits come with some red grease but Crispin went and bought a 500g tub of it. To whom shall I leave it when I die? I can't see myself every using that much...
A liberal dose of my pot-o-grease and new seals, same pistons and boots and refit them. All in all, with faffing, about 30-45 minutes. Simples.
Feeling somewhat cocky now I tackle the LHS.
Ohh, that does not look good. Before I had the calliper off I could see the pad had worn skew. Clearly one piston had seized.
Having a look at the rubber boots, this calliper is of the old design. It, like Tony's, does not have the circlip but rather a ridge that the boot clips over and holds itself in place. I wonder why I have different callipers on each side...
Off with the calliper, chuck away old disks and stare at a rust mass. Hmm, out come the large gas pliers. Piston 1 and 2 turn but no budge backwards or forwards... 3 and 4... I was lifting myself up when pushing down on the gas pliers. No move. Nudda. Zip.
Tony suggests putting the piston back on the car, jamming the two good ones and pumping the others out. Fine, let's try that. Nudda. They would not budge!
A quick consult with Chris and he suggests hammering it back in. If you can get it to move, then it may move back out.
One of the seized pistons did let go and moved in. It's not been to the Chris J school though as it was quite happy in its new position and refused to come back out.
The other would not budge at all.....
A call to Dave Docwra who has a metal gluing machine in lives not to far from me and I'm off.
After trying some bits, Dave pulls out the glue machine and glues a 25mm square tube to the piston. With a lot of huffing and puffing, it pulls free. Leverage is king aint it?
He glues the tube to the second piston but this one required more huffing and puffing than the first. Eventually, it pops out. The pistons are badly rusted. Clearly the rubber boot was not doing its job!
Back home with my now empty calliper and my new hammer made for me by Dave, I can clean up and put them back together.
Lots of wire brushing and emery paper to clean up the calliper and bore and an even unhealthier amount of red grease to try protect against water...
All back together and back in the truck. Will bleed and finish up tomorrow along with CV boot repair
Bloody Landrovers....
A big thanks to Chris and bigger thanks to Dave for the time spent gluing the metal together.
Next item on toy list: A metal gluing machine.
Here's the hammer Dave made me while I was waiting:
To be fair, one of the pistons which was really seized could have been reused. There was only a bit of surface rust above the seal which wiped off with some light sanding.
The two from the otherside, one was ok, the other was baddly pitted. Seeing as I had 4 new ones I just used new. Don't have to worry about them now.
It's taken them 8 years to get to this stage so I'm not going to change the caliper for the new design. When the pads need changing (put new ones on today) I'll take the seals apart and clean / grease etc. if I have to replace in another 10 years, that's fine by me...
After fitting alternator, I attacked the driver's side calliper. Easy off and onto bench.
Having seen Tony's not so long ago, I was expecting mine to be worse (hence the 4 spare pistons).
Pop off the seal and ooh, what's that? A cir-clip. Only the revised 120's had the cir-clip to hold the rubber seal in place. Wonder why I have them...
Anyway, off with the clips, seals and out with the pistons. They could have been pulled out by a baby with 2 teeth.
Bar a bit of surface rust, they are fine. Some wire brushing on the calliper to clean that up, some emery paper on the surface rust on the pistons and a good clean, time for new seals.
LB's air being put to good use. Reinforces my want for an airtank.
The seal kits come with some red grease but Crispin went and bought a 500g tub of it. To whom shall I leave it when I die? I can't see myself every using that much...
A liberal dose of my pot-o-grease and new seals, same pistons and boots and refit them. All in all, with faffing, about 30-45 minutes. Simples.
Feeling somewhat cocky now I tackle the LHS.
Ohh, that does not look good. Before I had the calliper off I could see the pad had worn skew. Clearly one piston had seized.
Having a look at the rubber boots, this calliper is of the old design. It, like Tony's, does not have the circlip but rather a ridge that the boot clips over and holds itself in place. I wonder why I have different callipers on each side...
Off with the calliper, chuck away old disks and stare at a rust mass. Hmm, out come the large gas pliers. Piston 1 and 2 turn but no budge backwards or forwards... 3 and 4... I was lifting myself up when pushing down on the gas pliers. No move. Nudda. Zip.
Tony suggests putting the piston back on the car, jamming the two good ones and pumping the others out. Fine, let's try that. Nudda. They would not budge!
A quick consult with Chris and he suggests hammering it back in. If you can get it to move, then it may move back out.
One of the seized pistons did let go and moved in. It's not been to the Chris J school though as it was quite happy in its new position and refused to come back out.
The other would not budge at all.....
A call to Dave Docwra who has a metal gluing machine in lives not to far from me and I'm off.
After trying some bits, Dave pulls out the glue machine and glues a 25mm square tube to the piston. With a lot of huffing and puffing, it pulls free. Leverage is king aint it?
He glues the tube to the second piston but this one required more huffing and puffing than the first. Eventually, it pops out. The pistons are badly rusted. Clearly the rubber boot was not doing its job!
Back home with my now empty calliper and my new hammer made for me by Dave, I can clean up and put them back together.
Lots of wire brushing and emery paper to clean up the calliper and bore and an even unhealthier amount of red grease to try protect against water...
All back together and back in the truck. Will bleed and finish up tomorrow along with CV boot repair
Bloody Landrovers....
A big thanks to Chris and bigger thanks to Dave for the time spent gluing the metal together.
Next item on toy list: A metal gluing machine.
Here's the hammer Dave made me while I was waiting:
To be fair, one of the pistons which was really seized could have been reused. There was only a bit of surface rust above the seal which wiped off with some light sanding.
The two from the otherside, one was ok, the other was baddly pitted. Seeing as I had 4 new ones I just used new. Don't have to worry about them now.
It's taken them 8 years to get to this stage so I'm not going to change the caliper for the new design. When the pads need changing (put new ones on today) I'll take the seals apart and clean / grease etc. if I have to replace in another 10 years, that's fine by me...
this is true...
