Proper brake lube?

[ColonelPanic]

The shop that rotated the tires on Marcie Vibe today told me she's down to 2mm on the pads. I trust their judgment, I knew 2 years ago it was going to need them soon. 70-something k on a 9 year old car, I guess it's time. I bought a set of pads last year, never put them on, and I still have a set of rotors left over from my Vibe that I didn't put on because I couldn't get the stupid things broken loose. Anyway... I will be honest, I have done several brake jobs to a few cars over the years and the idea of lubing caliper pins is foreign to me... Yeah, gimme a slap on the wrist, but I actually never had any problems. I picked up a can of this CRC synthetic brake & caliper grease that looked like it might do the trick.Then I go on the interwebs and see it could potentially gum up and cause things to stick. Then I see Syl-Glide being mentioned as a good alternative, and figured I could return what I have and try some of that. Others say that it (and the CRC) is not compatible with the types of rubber used in Toyota calipers and causes the rubber to swell. Toyota has a special secret "Lithium Soap Grease" they use. (Toyota part number, 08887-01206 Rubber Grease after consulting teh googles.)Bottom line, what type of product are you guys using for this that won't jack anything up? Thanks!

[vibedrivermatt]

well looks like you did a lot more research into this matter than I have. The main thing I looked for when picking up brake grease were the words "brake grease" and "synthetic". I ended up picking up this stuff. Seems to work fine for me although I only did one caliper out of laziness I found using too much grease on the pins had a bad effect. It caused something of a vacuum effect that made the pins really hard to move in and out of the caliper by hand. I did it over until the pins felt like they had the same amount of resistnace before they were taken apart.

[ColonelPanic]

I ended up leaving them alone, they still slid nicely. I don't think it would last another 9 years on the original grease (will probably need new calipers by then for sure!) but it seems to be OK for now. Might go back and recheck in the summer and replace the boots, the rubber is showing its age.

[ehoff121]

When I did the rears on Mrs. ehoff121's Highlander, I used the Permatex Ceramic Extreme http://www.permatex.com/products/produc ... ant-detail. A little dab'll do ya! The pin boots are inexpensive and easy to replace, so why risk a seized caliper by reusing the old boots and leaving the pins 'dry'?



Also used some of the lubricant on the noisy internal fan for a MacBook Pro and it worked like a charm!

[vibedrivermatt]

nice.

[vibedrivermatt]

Hey, maybe that brake grease I posted about before should not be used. I had a problem with it.

I recently checked the front calipers about about a year after changing the grease on only the left calipers guide pins. I didnt change the grease on the other one. The the guide pins on the caliper that I had messed with were completely dry! There was only a few dried up remnants of the grease I put in there left. Maybe I didn't put the boots back perfectly or what? I dont know what really went wrong. At lest the pins still looked ok as far as I could tell. I regreased them and put them back.


The other caliper that I left alone was still perfectly fine with its orignal grease. Maybe I should have taken the if it aint broke dont fix it route. I've ordered some new boots from rock auto and and probably gonna try to fix that caliper with some different grease.

Anybody have any pointers?

[vibedrivermatt]

Hey looks like I finally got this sorted. The problems I was having were because of using the incorrect grease. I guess certain types of grease wont work well with the japanese style guide pins with little rubber bushings..

Anyway, the easiest thing for most people with 09+ cars would not be not mess with the guide pins but if your a goof and take it apart like I did the silicone base grease should work. As well I would recommend getting new rubber boots and bushing for the guide pins if you plan to take apart because its just good to repace those anyway if your going to bother with it.

The one I found was permatex high temp silicone base stuff. also mentioned in the manual was something called 'Lithium soap base glycol grease'. I have no idea where to get that stuff. It sounds like something you'd use on an old timey steam powered car or something. So i'll just stick with the silicone base grease.

[Rayven01]

I remember reading about a TSB where 'Lithium soap base glycol grease' was phased out and replaced with silicone grease.. can't find it now though.