How to Lubricate Front Brake Calipers

[FireEngineer]

Almost time for me to do the 30,000 mile maintenance and since my third winter is coming up I would like to clean and lubricate the caliper slide pins. Although my city driving permits me the pleasure of jamming the brakes occasionally, I would still like to perform this procedure to prevent future problems (no drag for the glides). Can anyone who has a copy of the service manual produce or paraphrase a copy of the procedure for the pin removal and replacement with the torque specs. Thank you in advance.

Wayne

[tnthub]

I do not have the specs for which you ask but I did find this handy reference on brake lube:

http://www.aa1car.com/library/2005/ic80560.htm

[hobbit]

I did general cleanup and inspection of my front calipers recently,
and found that simply sliding them back and forth a bit on the pins
yielded a definite "crack loose from old long-term position and then
redistribute the grease" feeling. It is possible that that's all you
need to do to restore free "float", and thus avoid opening up those
little rubber seals and possibly getting dirt underneath. Be careful
to not slide the caliper too far and distort the rubber thingie and
possibly pull it loose; keep tight control of range of motion when
you go to play with the things.
.
I figure this will suffice until the grease inside *really* starts
to go, and I have no idea how long that'll take given that the pins
felt absolutely fine [on a 2-year-old car] when I did this.
.
_H*

[priusenvy]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hobbit @ Jul 27 2006, 07:55 AM) [snapback]293167[/snapback]</div>

It is possible that that's all you
need to do to restore free "float", and thus avoid opening up those
little rubber seals and possibly getting dirt underneath. Be careful
to not slide the caliper too far and distort the rubber thingie and
possibly pull it loose; keep tight control of range of motion when
you go to play with the things.
[/b]

I haven't taken a close look at the front brakes of my Prius, but on other cars, those "rubber thingies" are just dust boots that fit into grooves machined into either end of the caliper pins (bushings). You won't damage them by pulling the caliper pins out with your fingers, and in fact, are expected to do so as part of normal maintenance. Brush some high temperature brake grease on them and shove them back into the dust boots, snapping the seals into place in the grooves at either end of the pin (I never did figure out how you were supposed to do this without having the dust boot scrape off half the grease on the pin).

In my repair manual, next to "Front disc brake caliper assy x Steering knuckle" it says 81 ft-lbs. Seems awfully high - on my Jeep it's only 12 ft-lbs., and lug nuts are only torqued to 76 ft-lbs. Maybe that's for the caliper mounts and not the calipers themselves. Typically a caliper mount attaches to the steering knuckle, and then the caliper attaches to the caliper mount.