For decades I have been using either Sil Glyde or straight silicone grease on my Toyota/Lexus slide pins. Getting ready to lube pins on 2020 ES350 for first time. I have Mission silicone grease on hand but was wondering if I should buy Toyota lithium soap instead? Not that expensive and I know it is compatible. What do you think? Thanks.
Toyota Lithium Soap Grease
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Not to sound rude, but I think you're over thinking it. Use whatever you want. If you can afford the Toyota stuff, try it out and see if you like it. Otherwise stick with what you have used.
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I just mentioned this on another brake lubrication thread. Here is what Toyota would like for you to use. It isn't ridiculously expensive and a tube will service quite a few brake slider pins. Call around your local dealers or go on-line and order a tube. You won't be disappointed.
Yep, pretty cheap. I will get it. Thanks.
I will add that I did have a mechanic in the past use silicone for the sliding pins on my scion tC. The silicone caused the sliding pin seals to swell around the pin, which caused the brakes to begin to lock up! I ended up having to replace all the sliding pin seals/bushings since they were contaminated and swollen! There's a reason Toyota recommends this type of grease (lithium soap grease) because it's compatible with the rubber seals Toyota uses. The one drawback I've found is it dries out within a year. No problem, just service the brakes every year. Since I've been using the right grease, no problems at all.. Thought you'd like to know..
Mission silicone does not swell rubber. Your mechanic must have used a petroleum grease.
Except for fluorosilicone rubber, though I don't recall hearing of it being used for brake pin seals, doesn't have ideal properties (poor abrasion/high friction) for that.
If a vehicle's caliper pins are switched to silicone paste, it should have all the old grease flushed out of the bore first.
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The lithium grease sucks and hardens as it ages. I clean it out and replace with silicone brake grease
Yep, after 3 years pins were dry and sticking badly. Almost no factory grease left to clean out.
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Not to be a d*ck, but this is terrible advice. Some brake greases will in fact cause swelling of the rubber components on your calipers.
If the manual calls for lithium soap based glycol grease, then that's what OP should use. Silicone grease is *not* the same.
I used Permatex #80653 on my Lexus and it caused the piston boots to swell.
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Point taken, thank you for correcting my ignorance. Appologies.
Sounds like it - and mechanics spread that stuff on like Frank’s Red Hot for brakes.
It(the purple/lilac Permatex) does have a place on brakes - just on metal-to-metal surfaces in place of say, Molykote Cu7439 Subaru is fond of, and PBC grease Nissan calls for. I like that Permatex stuff for drum brakes.
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That's what my research told me. Nevertheless, there was swelling. And no, I'm quite certain it's orange. Just looked again. Yep, orange.
FWIW, I’m using the new Permatex orange silicone ceramic on the slide pins of a Prius. Seems to be OK. It does look like the Toyota grease after it’s been used.
I agree it doesn't swell rubber. I've used mission silicone for many years, high temp silicone is the only grease I can install that will not dry out in sliders and I can just leave it till the pads or rotors are gone. I plan on using for 4runner front brake pins also but will monitor twice a year to ensure pins are moving freeling through pad hangers.
This is what I use
I've used a lot of the Permatex purple stuff, CRC 5359 brake grease as well as Sil-Glyde on brake pins without ill effect. Not saying that none of those would never cause problems, but I haven't seen it.
First off, if there was still viable grease in it (not a contaminated miss-match of two different/incompatible greases mixed together), then the sliding pins swelling would not cause the brakes to lock up. What is more likely is what I hinted at above, that there was a contaminated miss-match where the mechanic did not remove the old crusty lithium grease and just added some silicone, so it was not the sliding pin seals that caused the lockup but rather lubrication failure.
Similarly, any grease that dries out within a year may also cause lockups. The key thing to do is NOT gravitate towards this inferior grease but to instead, completely, thoroughly, clean it out to be rid of it.
What I see in your link, is a topic where the dust boot around the piston looks either swollen or just misplaced due to a caliper piston leak.
1) That is not conclusive evidence of grease damage.
2) Why would they have greased the piston dust boot that much (if any) in the first place?
3) Where was it stated in your above, linked reddit topic, that the piston dust boot pictured, swelled up due to grease? I see no mention of that happening so I've no idea where your post is coming from?
4) Did you use that Permatex on the junction between the boot and the piston or lather it all over the boot? No grease should be lathered all over, and anything between the piston and boot should not have solid ceramic particles in it, but even so, a tiny bit between the piston and boot would not swell the whole boot. I suspect you just had a piston leak.
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