I have 1999 Camry LE 4-cyl with 120,000 miles. As I was preparing to change the pads and rotors, I noticed that I couldn't remove (or rotate) the lower sliding pin in the torque plate. With a lot of prying, I was finally able to remove it and it looks horrible compared to the other pin. It was covered in rust, there was no grease present, and after sanding the rust off, the bolt still looks horrible.
My questions: Do I only need to replace the lower sliding pin? Or do I need to replace the torque plate as well?
No real reason to replace the torque plate. Just get some anti-seize for the bolt when you reassemble it.
The sliding pin is the real worrisome thing here. You can have your brakes drag, and then have to replace the rotor or the caliper.
What I did: got myself some emery cloth and a dremel-like tool. Check the boot, too; no sense in doing all this if the boot is bad.
Yank the pin out however. What i did was got a C clamp and 'pressed' it out. Use vise grips if you really need to tug it.
Go around it with the emery cloth to remove any high spots or oxidation. Then I sanded it with 1200 grit to give it a nice smooth finish.
Take the dremel (much easier than trying to sand it with sandpaper!!) using the sanding cylinder, and work on the inside of the caliper that the pin travels in. It's probably pretty rust. Grind it out until it is nice and shiny, sand with 1200 if you like.
Get some of that 'clear' grease or a high temp grease and grease it. Put in the boot. Grease the pin and install it in the boot. You should be good to go!
This is good. Ya know, I had replaced the pads and rotors 60,000 miles ago using ceramic pads and Brimbo rotors (and forgetting to regrease the sliding pins). Within 10,000 miles the rotors were warped again and I had been blaming it on the pads. All this time, it was probably the sliding pin that caused all of these problems; especially since the inner pad was significantly thinner than the outer pad. Lesson learned. Good thing it only cost me $7.50 per turned rotor and a new set of $30 pads.
Thanks for the help. I've got a drimmel on hand. I used a wire wheel to sand off the rust from the sliding pin until I can get to the dealer on Monday (the rust etched the pin pretty deep). I'll inspect the boots tomorrow as well.
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