[bw77]

The biggest repair problem I have had with my car (99 S70GLT) is burned out brakes due to the pads sticking on the pins. Happened twice, once on the front left, once on the rear left. <p>Looking back, I wish I had known, or someone (like the Volvo dealer) had told me that I need to have the caliper pins/slides checked and, if needed, cleaned/lubed, or replaced. Maybe checked twice a year when I change the oil (I don't put on a lot of miles).<p>How much work is involved in checking the condition of the slides? Can they be seen without taking the wheels off? And how much work is it to put in a pin kit or clean/lube the slides?<p>Wish I had known to ask this years ago. Thanks.

 

[LloydDobler]

The best way to check them is to pull the wheel, and unbolt the caliper from the pins. Then take the caliper off and feel how they slide by hand. To do a quick grease job, you just pull them out, they're only held on by the rubber boot. To thoroughly clean them, you want to remove the caliper frame, then get it on a bench and clean it out with some solvent and a rag on a small screwdriver. Fresh grease, check for excessive wear, check for cracks in the boots, then reassemble. Use loctite on the caliper frame bolts. The pins have a square head on them to keep them from spinning while tightening, make sure that is seated right or the pins will bind up from that as well. You can slowly compress the caliper piston and then check for (mostly) free movement of the caliper after assembly if you want to be really sure.<p>The whole job should take less than 20 minutes per wheel once you've done it once or twice.

 

[Wayne T5]

Re: Checking the brake caliper slides (bw77)

I just replaced the driver side front caliper on my '99. After ten years driving on northern roads with heavy salt usage my driver side caliper was shot. I need to check the passenger side tomorrow and bleed the entire system as my brakes still feel a little softer than I like.

 

[bw77]

Re: Checking the brake caliper slides (Wayne T5)

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD><i>Quote, originally posted by <b>Wayne T5</b> »</i></TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I just replaced the driver side front caliper on my '99. After ten years driving on northern roads with heavy salt usage my driver side caliper was shot. I need to check the passenger side tomorrow and bleed the entire system as my brakes still feel a little softer than I like.</TD></TR></TABLE><p>Did you do any maintenance on the front caliper during the 10 years - cleaning, pin kit, etc?<p>My front caliper seized up at 5.5 years and 65K miles, and they replaced all 4 calipers. Then my new rear caliper seized up about 4 years and 27K miles later. The other new rear got a pin kit at the same time.

 

[bw77]

Re: (LloydDobler)

Thank you. It sounds like you have done a few of those!

 

[Wayne T5]

Re: Checking the brake caliper slides (bw77)

I have only owned this car for a few months so I can't tell what has been done to it in the past. On my previously owned '94 850 and '99 S70 T5 (when we lived in Albany!) that I drove for a combined 7 years I never had a problem with the pins. I only replaced the pads on the '94 once (at something like 80k!) and replaced all of the rotors and pads on the '99 once. When I did the brake work on the '99 I cleaned everything up and used the syl glide lubricant that came with the ipd brake kit.