2010-2015 Toyota Prius Brake rear brakes sliding pins cleaning

Really nice job!

 

Thanks for the nice video. I ended up doing this last fall, along with a premature rear brake job. I didn't really know about slide pins, but assume regreasing slide pins would be part of the typical brake service at Toyota, but apparently not. The rear brakes were done, for the first time, at 124,000 miles and I had to redo them just 21,000 miles later because they seized up. I had to replace all the slide pins as they were bone dry and rusted. Needless to say, I am going to make this an annual service that I will be doing myself.

 

Usually when I'm in there I'll take the pads out, separate the shims and apply a sparing amount of anti-seize to all the faying surfaces. You could also apply a little silicon dielectric compound to the pin boot.

One caution with the rear brakes upon reassembly: be sure the cross pattern on the caliper piston face is oriented so that the gap between spokes is centered. There's a pin on the back of the inner pad that must fall in that gap.

Also, after reassembly, push the brake pedal multiple times, to ensure that piston is WELL seated, prior to application of parking brake, which could rotate the piston, which you don't want to happen. If it does the rear brake pads will be applied unevenly, drag terrifically, and so on.

There's a tool to help with rotating the piston, or needle nose pliers will work, in a pinch:



Here's a screen-grab from the video. I suspect the piston rotates a bit whenever you pull the caliper off, not sure. That was the case when I did it. It looks slightly mis-aligned here, maybe not enough to cause the pin to be riding up on a spoke:



(Red circle is roughly where the pin will fit.)

Front brakes have no problem, it's just the rears with integrated parking brake mechanism. Fronts should be done at same interval.

 

Nice DIY job, Thank you.
It will be a Spring job on my wife's 2011 along with a full 4 corner's brake

 

well done, thank you!

 

Nice video, with a few extra things I'd mention though.

Compatibility between different grease bases is actually a thing. On the pins, instead of a silicone, Toyota uses a "lithium soap based glycol grease" (they call it "Rubber Grease" on the tube), it's pink and does not cause the rubber pin boots to swell (which would bind the brake). A little packet of it is included if you buy the caliper rebuild kit.

The chemistry magic to decide if some different grease will play nicely with the original is way beyond me, so I just follow the two basic rules: 1) replace like with like, OR 2) clean out ALL the old grease (think several cotton swabs down into the pin bores) before replacing with something else.

I usually run some swabs through the pin bores before regreasing anyway. You know that whatever's in there is in the same condition as the gunk you wiped off the pin, right? Most importantly, there could be water in it, and start emulsifying your nice new grease from the moment you put it back together.

If you leave the boot on the brake, grease the pin, then slide it through the boot, a lot of the grease can end up wiped off the pin on the way in.

A lot of people would bend up a coat hanger or something similar to use to hang the caliper from the coil spring or something nearby, just to make sure the caliper never gets left with its weight hanging on the rubber hose.

If, before you slide the caliper off the pads, you just grab with both hands and squish it toward you a little (thumbs on the brackets), you'll usually have opened it up just enough that it will be a lot easier to slip back on (unless it really is bound up). It will return to the correct clearance while you are pumping the pedal (as Mendel suggested) before reconnecting the battery.

While the caliper is off is a very easy time to test the caliper piston return, if you have some hard blocks about as thick as the rotor + pads. Just stick the blocks into the removed caliper, apply some light brake pedal pressure until the piston has just pushed against the block, then release and measure how far the piston returned. On my (Gen 1, front) calipers, it's about 0.3 mm when they are not bound up, that should be about the ballpark.

It's a quick test to do, and if you see it with a good retraction, you can put everything back together with your new greased pins and know you are good to go for probably tens of thousands more miles. On the other hand, if you see no return, you can make plans to address that problem and get everything back in working order. Replacing whole calipers can be pricey (from Toyota anyway), but the rebuild kit is cheap ... $20 or $30 ish from Toyota, one kit does both sides. Off-brand can be even cheaper, but at a price like that every, what, 150,000 miles, I'd go ahead and use Toyota's parts. (I once installed an off-brand reman caliper that had zero piston return right out of the box!)

-Chap

 

I've never thought to clean the residual grease out of the pin bore, good tip. FWIW, I've been using Sil-Glyde and it seems to co-exist with the OEM stuff.

 

Thanks for the video, nutsaboutboltz! In the intro, you stated: In preparation, to avoid problems - disconnect the battery. I am not sure why this is done. I seem to remember on a previous thread it was suggested that you don't open the doors to the car when you perform this procedure. It was to suggested that you place tape over the door seams to remind you not to open the doors until you are done.

My 2 cents. I also take out the rubber boot, clean it (old dirty grease gets coated to the inside of the boot, I also clean the cavity where the pin slides into as mentioned by Chap above) and then treat it with a spray of silicone. The boot is thin and flexible, it can be turned inside out for easier cleaning.

 

Sometimes packets of lube that come with brake pads are anti-seize compound, the molybdenum paste stuff. This is the case with Honda. I purchased a rear brake pad set for our Prius, can't remember if it came with any lube, one way or the other lol. But anyway, if it were anti-seize compound supplied, you would not want to use that on the pins, it's just for faying surfaces, ie: pad back to shim, shim to caliper, and the end tips of the pad to anti-rattle clips.

 

If you buy a genuine Toyota shim kit, it comes with a packet of shim grease (it's gray, anti-seize-like stuff). If you buy a genuine Toyota caliper rubber kit (seals and boots), it comes with a packet of the pink lithium-soap glycol grease. There are pictures in an older post.

I guess everything I do on my car is personal preference. On the other hand, when I have "preferences" and so does the Toyota tribologist who spec'd out the brake lubes, I don't necessarily assume I've got a 50% chance my preference is better informed than his (or hers).

-Chap