Any ideas? Looks astonishingly clean to say it's been in a caliper for 15 years, but it's picked up a lot of hard to remove crustyness on the exposed section behind the dust seal, which makes me unsure as to whether it'd be stainless or mild steel.
What are brake caliper pistons made of?
Aug 09, 2007
12 Replies
They are usually hard-chromed alloy steel/mild steel. I've got aftermarket stainless pistons in one of my bike calipers and they are great and virtually maintenance free over the winter. If any of the bit you say is 'crusty' needs to be pushed back as far as the seal area when you put new pads in, then it's time for a new piston. JB
I was thinking a bit c*ck eyed. The crusty bit is the part outside of the dust seal.
That's ok then. A quick clean up with scotchbrite, some non-mineral based grease and pop the buggers back in again.
JB
Gizzan example of a non-mineral grease. I'm struggling to find specific brake grease.
It's does exist - something like rubber-ease or something. Oh, hang on, might have gotten my catalogues mixed up.....
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part no: 184-7967 This what I've used for ages. JB
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"JB" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:
Tut, I say, tut :-)
On my SD1 the originals were chromed steel. Which had a life of about 15 years in my case. The replacements I got are stainless steel.
Ask for rubber grease. It's usually bright red. Brake grease is often high melting point stuff for greasing handbrake linkages etc and not to be used on pistons.
I've said it many times and still never seem to learn that 'cut and paste' will be my undoing......
JB
ceratec
Chapman. Pretty sure I must have got it from Fittapart.
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