Would you reuse this caliper piston?

[Titbit21]

I just took this caliper apart, and this piston had some marks on it. No major rust, but I was wondering if i cleaned it up, would it be ok to use. Sorry about the poor picture. It was the best I could do with my phone.

[Titbit21]

Also how do you insert a image lol

There is suppose to be a image, but it is not there. How do you post a image onto a thread? I have seen it done.

[Rasputin]

In your Photobucket account, hover your mouse over the picture. You will see a drop down list. Click on the one that says IMG Code and copy that. Paste it in your message and it shows up.

[Titbit21]

how fully this works



thanks for the help

[b.walker5]

That'll clean up okay. Mine are way worse than that and still working fine. However if you want perfection and have the bux then replace them, otherwise clean em up with some fine emery paper (carefully), put em back in, replace the oil seal, refit the dust cover boot and forget about them.

[Titbit21]

sweet. I dont mind spending the bucks to stop me from a bad time, but if yours are worse and still ok i'll be cheap on this.

[b.walker5]

The pitting is only on the dust cover end and, unless forced all the way in, wont go thru the oil seal so it'll never be a safety issue. Save your money for more important things, like beer while you work on your bike.

[James England]

Use it! There's no damage at the area where the seal operates.

[Titbit21]

How do you remove the slide seals and post to grease?

The slides on the calipers are really hard to move on one, and stuck on the other. I have done this on cars before, but these seem to be a bit more difficult. How can I remove the seals without any damage to them?

[natemoen]

Carefully pull it out with a pick or a small screwdriver.

[wingnut]

Yes and you should. Use a hook scribe to get around the back and pull them out of the grove. They are just a square oring so don't get medieval with them and they should be reusable after you clean them up. Clean the grove that they sit in of all gunk. That's one of the things that will make the caliper bind up and not release. Only use brake clean and brake fluid as solvents.

[Titbit21]

Cool thanks for the info. I would hate to have to wait another week on ordering new seals. I'll try my best not to go medieval

[cywelchjr]

Actually here is where I disagree (and so does my auto shop teacher). Once the caliper is off and just the metal parts, run that sucker through the dishwasher (while SWMBO is NOT around if you value your health) and when it's fully dry, THEN use brake cleaner and brake fluid the finish cleaning out the groove if needed, of course you may find it's not needed. Don't use soapy water on the brake lines, cause you can't reliably dry them out, but the calipers can be reliably dried out and soap and water is the best cleaning agent around, just make sure they are clean the dry before you put them back together, and use only brake fluid to clean the rubber parts.

[wingnut]

Never having had the balls to put a nasty brake caliper in SWMBO's dishwasher I can't comment. My point was that you should not use a petroleum based solvent and mix it with the DOT3. And I'm not sure even the dishwasher would remove all the gunk I've found in those groves. I have a little aluminum brush that fits in the drumel tool that I have had to use to get them clean

[crazy steve]

What Cy's trying to say is when cleaning the non-rubber parts, use whatever works best; I run my brake parts through the cleaning solvent tank. But after they're clean, some hot soapy water will remove any petroleum residue. I've done the dishwasher trick, and it works for this...