Coke can for brake disks

Life Cars & Motorcycles
1

Not actually AS brake disks, but to clean them up a bit.

Exhibit A : Drivers side front hub and brakes.

servimg.com/view/18149521/126

I put the foil on the hub a couple of years ago to stop the wheels rusting on. Seems to have worked, but of course the remains look messy. The rusted remains of a shim have displaced and are stuck against the disk boss. The brakes don’t squeal and I probably wouldn’t care much if they did, so I probably don’t need shims.

Exhibit B : During cleanup.

servimg.com/view/18149521/127

Other wheel is chocked and the engine run in second gear. (higher gear might have been better but wasn’t sure the diff would like it.) Coke (or beer) can top/bottom (or whole thing crushed) is forced against the disc rim. Whole can crushed has more material but is a bit grabby and top or bottom is probably safer. You could easily get your hand mangled doing this, and it might have been smarter to hold the can section with mole grips.

I wore eye protection but no breathing or hearing protection, both of which would probably have been a good idea. Stray dogs cleared the area as soon as I started.

Exhibit C: Disk after cleanup (this is actually the other side)
servimg.com/view/18149521/128

Exhibit D: “Tools”
servimg.com/view/18149521/129
The bits of TV ariel were used for the side of disk boss, You CAN get a can in there but it feels too risky.

Exhibit E : Caliper guide pin before cleanup.
servimg.com/view/18149521/130

Exhibit F : Caliper parts after cleanup

servimg.com/view/18149521/131

I don’t know if the “shinyness” on the disk edge is clean steel or adherent aluminium. The latter would be better from a corrosion reistance perspective but I’d guess its a bit of both.

Clearly the steel is still pitted, and it would take a very long time to remove the pits. I’m not using any binder for the aluminium here, because I’m concerned about contaminating the pad surfaces, but that would probably help fill the pits and I might try it. Superglue would probably be safest in this application, but it’ll likely burn off, as would anything else I can think of except maybe ceramics.

I’ve tried various tricks to clean up brake disks for the UK MOT (annual anal vehicle inspection). None of them worked, and this probably wouldn’t either, but it looks more promising than anything else I’ve tried. Electrolysis would probably be better but I don’t have to pass an MOT any more so I havn’t bothered to set that up.

(There were traces of what was probably very old hardened copaslip on the stainless slides, the pad backs, and perhaps some contamination of the pads. I cleaned this off (initially under water) with coke can, foil, scraped the pads with a razor blade, boiled them, dried them off, and then used brake cleaner on them, and they look a lot better, but of course you cant really get all that stuff off.)

2

Ever thought of using a brass wire brush? If you have a drill or dremel, you can get brass wire brushes for them too.
Brass is a soft metal, just like aluminum, and they are very common in the hardware stores/10NT dollar stores and
they are cheap too. Never thought about using them before, until I complained to a friend of mine about rust and he
suggested a copper brush. But brass/copper, almost the same thing, and probably a lot safer to use.

Good cleaning job by the way…

3

[quote=“johnledoe”]Ever thought of using a brass wire brush? If you have a drill or dremel, you can get brass wire brushes for them too.
Brass is a soft metal, just like aluminum, and they are very common in the hardware stores/10NT dollar stores and
they are cheap too. Never thought about using them before, until I complained to a friend of mine about rust and he
suggested a copper brush. But brass/copper, almost the same thing, and probably a lot safer to use.

Good cleaning job by the way…[/quote]

Think I tried a steel wire brush before a UK MOT(which I usually failed for “cosmetic” rust on the brake disks) and it wasn’t very effective.

Also, a potential advantage of the aluminium is that its higher in the electrochemical series so it MIGHT have a protective effect (though since I didn’t use binder it might not be there for long).

Brass (If they are really brass. Suspect they might just be plated) is an alloy of Zinc (good) and Copper (bad), so it’d be hard to predict its electrochemical effect, if any.

Pure copper sounds like a bad idea.

4

Well, apparently not, since the drivers side wheel is getting hot, and it wasn’t before, AFAIK

I THINK I flipped the pads on one side, but I thought (a) it was the passenger side, and (b) didn’t think it would matter, but either way I’ll have to take the drivers side apart again.

EDIT: An alternative interpretation, which I hadn’t thought of, is that the passenger side isn’t working properly, (perhaps because of the pad flipping) so the drivers side is doing all the work, and that is why its getting hot.

I doubt this is the case since I wasn’t driving or braking especially aggressively, so I think it would have to be stuck on to get as hot as it did.

I didn’t get to see the numbers on the (private) inspection centre brake tester, and wouldn’t necessarily believe them if I did, but if it was VERY bad, as in one side not working, I’d think they might have failed it, even in Taiwan?

I’m now about 20k away from my tools, so I’ll limp it back slowly in stages and see what it does. If it still gets hot with gentle driving, that’ll tend to support the “stuck on” hypothesis. ENDEDIT

5

It should be pretty clear if it’s stuck on as the car will pull to one side when you lift off, or if one side isn’t working, then it will pull under braking.

6

Doesn’t do either to any marked degree.

Could try some emergency stops later but so far I’ve been driving in traffic where this wouldn’t have been comfortable.

It got hot on the trip back from Tainan. Not AS hot, but I stopped a few times and avoided the freeway

7

I suppose if I jack up the front and run it with the wheels off/off the ground, it should be obvious if one of the brakes is binding. Might give some clues as to which is working best too since that brake will defeat the other one below the stall point.

8

Jacked up with the wheels off at idle in 2nd gear, the drivers side doesn’t rotate. Feeding a bit (not a lot) of brake pressure in to transfer some drive to the stuck side gets it moving, so its not VERY stuck, but its stuck enough to be a problem.

Have already cleaned up the slider pins and pad guides. Its got a new brake hose that side, but I’ve used PTFE tape on the outer threads of both the brake hose and the bleed nipple. I was pretty careful to avoid it getting into the plumbing and acting as a non-return valve, and opening the bleed nipple doesn’t free off the wheel, so I don’t THINK that’s the problem.

So I reckoned I had to take the caliper apart and clean it up (or replace it, IF available). I took it off, but couldn’t remove the dust boot, and damaged it trying.

The Daihatsu G100 manual (Not the same car, Skywing seems to be mostly like a G11, but probably close) says:-

“Detach the cylinder boot set ring and cylinder boot, using a common screwdriver”

which seems to be easier said than done.

Other (non-make specific) sources vary, from the realistic/defeatist “cut away the dust seals” (perhaps implying that it isn’t possible to get them out intact, at least on Rovers)

head2head.free-online.co.uk/ … aliper.htm

to the standard-issue insane optimism of “Remove the outer dust seal, too.” (Yeh, thanks for that piece of “useful” advice)

popularmechanics.com/cars/ho … 5/4305927/

Eric the Car Guy seems to leave them in place, and just blows the pistons out through them with compressed air.

youtube.com/watch?v=I4FzXGrSrmU

I don’t have compressed air, so my options for removing the piston (whether or not I get the dust boot off first) seemed to be:-
(a) Take it to a filling station that has air (rather a lot of them in these parts don’t)
(b) Find my old brake hose and hook it up (duct-tape may feature) to a bicycle pump
© Put it back on the car and blow it out with the brake pedal.
(d) inject butane into it (blocking the pipe-port with a suitable bolt) and drop it in boiling water
(e) (more extreme, but easier variant of d) - Harness The Power of The Chip Pan - seal water in it and drop it in very hot vegetable oil.

Compressed air just sprayed brake fluid around, and I couldn’t find my old brake hose, so I cleaned it up a bit with coke can in a drill chuck (fairly pointless, but the vibration might help) dribbled some brake fluid behind the dust boot (as a penetrating lubricant) then put it back on the car for blowing out with the brake pedal.

Let the pictures tell the story. (WARNING - Not suitable for anyone with mechanical sympathy, like, say, Germans)

Caliper on first removal.

Back on car during piston removal with hydraulic pressure, after partial clean-up and failed attempts with compressed air.

Piston on first removal. Euew!

Bottom of piston on first removal. Euew! again.

Sludgy Cylinder Base

Cylinder Rim Corrosion

Cleaner Piston

Dust Boot Out

Dust Boot Seat Corrosion

Partly Cleaned Dust Boot Groove (Bore looks rusty but its mostly rust from the seating groove sticking to silicone grease)

Even if ultimately unsuccessful, this has so far been quite instructive. For instance:-

(a) Brake flushing has been almost completely ineffective at removing this muck. This suggests that this should be a periodic maintenance operation on old cars, especially old Taiwanese cars.

(b) Despite the cylinder being full of rusty, gritty sludge, there was surprisingly little local corrosion inside the seal. This suggests it came from elsewhere, presumably the master cylinder and/or pipework. If I was in the Yook I’d be looking to replace the pipes with copper (I have/had an unused flare-tool in the Yook) but I dunno if that’ll be possible here.

© I couldn’t find brake grease in Taiwan but got some in Japan. I SUSPECT that local mechanics often just use lithium grease which isn’t rubber compatible, but perhaps modern cars use synthetic rubber (viton etc) for seals so thats OK?

9

I put it back together with silicone grease, since I couldn’t find my rubber grease (generally disorganised, and in the middle of a house-move). I’ll probably use it when I do the other side, sort of an accidental experiment.

Brakes seem much better, but there’s rubbing (mostly on corners) from the other side, where I’d removed the pads to strip the caliper but then ran out of time so just put them back together. Maybe I swapped them over and they are just re-bedding, but I don’t see why that would be sensitive to cornering. I’ll have another look at it at the weekend if I have time.

Don’t seem to be any leaks, but it hasn’t had a very long test drive yet.

10

One hesitates to suggest buying another (newer) car. But nonetheless one does. Shit wears out.

11

Yeah eventually so many things need attention that a new(er) car is a better option.

I don’t replace pads anymore. Back breaking work. Last time , on my Mondeo (Ford Contour) I replaced the pads and the disks. It was fairly straightforward.

Didn’t do the rear as they were drum brakes and that seemed harder.

Taiwan is great because labor is so cheap. Why do it yourself at all? Here they charge bout 90/hour at small garages connected to a gas station to 150 /hour at a premium brand dealership (like BMW, Audi)

And there should only be very slight resistance. IF it’s sticking, its not right.

12

Shit gets fixed. I find that satisfying. New cars suck, and can’t be fixed.

Taiwanese are baffled by the fact that my car is still (sometimes) running, and I’m now starting to get a certain amount of flak from the school about parking it on campus. El Presidente Nuevo himself has apparently expressed displeasure, and uniquely, a current inspection certificate has been demanded, probably on the assumption that it didn’t have one.

Ha! I have turned the table of Taiwanese red tape to entangle my tormentors!

Bad for the corporate image, I suppose, but hey, if they want me to have a flashier car, they should consider paying me above minimum wage for foreigners.

Then I might be able to buy something older :smiley:

13

Put on a pic of this beast you enclose yourself in ! :slight_smile:

14

forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopi … 0#p1287549

Its best side (lots of missing paint from other angles).

It looks a bit worse now though because I’ve taken action against some of the rust, and I’ve thrown the wheel trims away.

I’ve never been able to understand what they are for.

15

Is that a daihatsu?

Part of Toyota they can live long. But yours is now worth maybe 1000 nt. I can see why they didn’t want you parked at the school. Yours is now the automobile equivalent of the bum asking for a buck at the gas station.

But if you love the challenge of keeping a thing going that’s an awesome car and you can learn eventually everything about how cars and car parts work.

16

[quote=“tommy525”]Is that a daihatsu?

Part of Toyota they can live long. But yours is now worth maybe 1000 nt. I can see why they didn’t want you parked at the school. Yours is now the automobile equivalent of the bum asking for a buck at the gas station.

But if you love the challenge of keeping a thing going that’s an awesome car and you can learn eventually everything about how cars and car parts work.[/quote]

For sale its worth nothing, because no one would buy it, but I think it’d be worth more than 1000NT as scrap. I baofei’d a Ford Sierra a few years ago and made, IIRC, 4000NT profit on its purchase price (6000NT).

Re the “bum at the gas station” image thing, its a common attitude, but its of course stronger here, due to the face thing, so I can consider it part of my counter-cultural irritant portfolio.

IOW, Fuck em

17

According to my nephew, who made a stopover on his way home from 2 years of school in DETROIT (of all places) all the cars in Detroit pretty much look like yours, whatever the original brand !

And all the homes look like they were abandoned years ago.

He said he was so happy he didn’t stop over on his way THERE , as he would have found it so depressing living in what is surely the armpit of America (if not the anus).

18

[quote=“Ducked”][quote=“tommy525”]Is that a daihatsu?

Part of Toyota they can live long. But yours is now worth maybe 1000 nt. I can see why they didn’t want you parked at the school. Yours is now the automobile equivalent of the bum asking for a buck at the gas station.

But if you love the challenge of keeping a thing going that’s an awesome car and you can learn eventually everything about how cars and car parts work.[/quote]

For sale its worth nothing, because no one would buy it, but I think it’d be worth more than 1000NT as scrap. I baofei’d a Ford Sierra a few years ago and made, IIRC, 4000NT profit on its purchase price (6000NT).
[/quote]

Why teach English when you can make such great profits in the motor trade?

19

[quote=“Charlie Phillips”][quote=“Ducked”][quote=“tommy525”]Is that a daihatsu?

Part of Toyota they can live long. But yours is now worth maybe 1000 nt. I can see why they didn’t want you parked at the school. Yours is now the automobile equivalent of the bum asking for a buck at the gas station.

But if you love the challenge of keeping a thing going that’s an awesome car and you can learn eventually everything about how cars and car parts work.[/quote]

For sale its worth nothing, because no one would buy it, but I think it’d be worth more than 1000NT as scrap. I baofei’d a Ford Sierra a few years ago and made, IIRC, 4000NT profit on its purchase price (6000NT).
[/quote]

Why teach English when you can make such great profits in the motor trade?[/quote]

Well, everything’s relative. Maybe the sarcasm indicates you’re an exception, but most punters (apart maybe from those buying “classics”) lose either (a) a lot, or (b) a hell of a lot, on car purchase.

A profit, however modest, puts you ahead of the game.

That car IS an unfortunate example of the potential drawbacks of a stubborn insistence on DIY, though, since I killed it with incompetence, whereas if I’d outsourced the repair it’d probably still be going.

Pity, cos, although automatic, it was RWD, and RWD cars are hard to find.