27
Pro tip: stop using the wrong grease on caliper slide pins
I was doing a brake job on a 2018 F-150 last month and the slide pins were totally stuck. The customer said his last shop did the brakes six months ago. I pulled them out and they had this thick, sticky black grease that looked like wheel bearing grease. That stuff just gums up with heat and dust. I cleaned them off and used silicone-based brake lube, the pins move like butter now. How many shops are still using the wrong grease and causing these callbacks?
4 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In4 Comments
hill.nathan2mo ago
My old shop foreman swore by that purple Permatex ceramic brake lube. He said regular grease would fail in under a year every time. Honestly I see this all the time on used cars that come in, the pins are just seized solid. It's crazy how a five dollar tube of the right stuff can save so much headache later on.
7
victorh812mo ago
Man, I used to just grab whatever grease was on the shelf for brake pins. Figured lube was lube, right? Then I had a set of pads stick so bad I had to hammer the caliper off six months later. That purple ceramic stuff? Night and day difference. Pins still slide smooth years later. Makes you realize how wrong you can be about the small things.
3
ellioth371mo ago
Wait, isn't the purple stuff synthetic grease and not actually ceramic? I thought the "ceramic" part was just a brand name. It's still the right silicone-based type for the job, but that label always seemed like marketing. The real point is avoiding any petroleum-based grease near rubber parts.
7