Sierra Front Brakes in the Salt /Rust Belt.

[George7941]

When my truck was about fours years old, the ABS light came on due to an erratic signal from one of the front wheel sensors. Googling revealed this to be a wide spread problem with Sierra/ Silverados and is caused by rust building up at the sensor mount. I took off the sensors, cleaned everything up and remounted sensors. My regimen now is to apply Krown to this mounting area twice a year, during snow tire changeover.

This spring, when I took the snow tires off, I noticed that three of the brake pads were at 50% life left, but the passenger inner pad was at 30%. Hmm, must be a sticking caliper. So I bought a wrecker caliper and a caliper rebuild kit from RockAuto. It was when I went to install it on my truck I realised that the issue was actually rust buildup on the caliper bracket guideways. These are where the pad ears butt up against, with stainless steel anti rattle clips in betweeen. Wire brushing removed all the rust and the pads are free to move now. Another step has been added on to my regimen now and that is to carefully apply some Krown to the guideways twice a year.

The rear drums have been flawless so far.

BTW I am still on my original pads, at 124k km/ 78k mi, in spite of driving in a very busy city.

 

[jrustles]

I'm right in the area bro, I feel your pain. This city does not take salting/brining lightly.

 

[doitmyself]

Thank you for sharing that useful information for others to learn from.

Learning from my kid's old Ford Escorts which had lower pin boot corrosion binding, I now always coat critical caliper surfaces with rust preventative (moly paste) to avoid binding caused by the rust "swelling".

I found out that wire brushing the areas sometimes only polished the rust and I needed to use harsher methods to actually break the swollen metal away. Either a hammer/chisel, some type of file, or rotary tool.

Take care.

 

[George7941]

The wire brush I used on my angle grinder was very coarse and handled the rust. I initially tried the chisel/hammer method but I was not getting a smooth surface, so I took the caliper bracket off the truck so that the rotor would not be in the way of the wire wheel.

I have the Molykote moly paste and applied it to the pad ears but my experience is that any kind of grease on a surface exposed to salt will work at preventing rust for only so long before the grease becomes saturated with water/salt and then the grease exacerbates the rusting. Fresh Krown every six months will hopefully keep the rust at bay.

 

[sciphi]

Yep, had to do the same thing to the brakes on the Fit every fall since they'd start squeaking like the pads needed to be replaced. Except there was a lot of pad left. A good cleaning quieted them down for another year. Replacing the OEM pads has worked so far to keep that squeak from coming back.

 

[ThirdeYe]

The rear brakes seize up on my Acura all the time, probably because of the salty roads and the nature of having disc brakes in the rear. They've been replaced 3 times in the past 9 years...

The fronts only twice.

 

[EdwardC]

Yep, same with the Honda down here in Illinois. If you don't already, I would clean and regrease the caliper pins while you're at it. I just wire brush the stainless holders.

I just replaced the front pads on my parent's 08 RX350 and the inner pads were about gone while the outside pads had about 2/3 of the friction material left. We ended up filing the ears of the pads a little bit to get a smoother fit, even with the holder wire brushed clean and coated with some anti seize.

 

[Trav]

Next time you take them out coat them with Never Seez Mariners Choice Anti-Seize and call it a day. You will never need to remove them again unless one goes bad.
This is the stuff for hubs and other under the car parts in the salt belt.

 

[supton]

Yep, I'm basically planning on taking apart brakes 2x a year now. Might be worthwhile to do at tire rotation time, or at least a quick inspection.

 

[KrisZ]

Originally Posted By: George7941
Another step has been added on to my regimen now and that is to carefully apply some Krown to the guideways twice a year.


Your regimen is good except the above part about using Krown on pad guides. Simply put, forget about it! It will either wash off quickly or drip off when the brakes heat up. You have to use something heavier and more tacky.

 

[doitmyself]

Originally Posted By: KrisZ
Originally Posted By: George7941
Another step has been added on to my regimen now and that is to carefully apply some Krown to the guideways twice a year.

Your regimen is good except the above part about using Krown on pad guides. Simply put, forget about it! It will either wash off quickly or drip off when the brakes heat up. You have to use something heavier and more tacky.



This is a good discussion. I, too, think that the Krown product is too light and not designed for areas with pressure that will squeeze it out.

Trav's recommendation of Marine Neverseize looks interesting. Is it rubber safe around brake components? It is a calcium complex base.

I use a paper thin coating of a moly product called Pastelub2400. During my tire rotation yesterday, the surfaces I covered (axle nut area, wheel hub, etc.) were perfect after a very harsh salty winter.

I started using this product when a sample I tried seemed 100% hydrophobic in a hand "faucet test". http://www.goodson.com/Pastelub-Synthetic-Hi-Temp-Brake-Lubricant/

 

[Trav]

Do not use the Marine never Seize on brake rubber. On the ABS sensor and external parts like bracket its great.