I should watch this board more closely. If I had realized you were coming through I would have invited you over for a coffee.

Maybe next time

That would have been an idea. I did go to Timmies for lunch. My son and daughter are in Toronto, but they didn't even know I was there - They are busy at work and I wanted to get back. Left Kingston at 9:30am, back home by 5:00 with rebuilt caliper in hand! Used C$40 of diesel at 1.29/litre (in GLK)

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Graham
85 300D,72 350SL, 98 E320, Outback 2.5

Seems things did not work out with my rebuilt calipers

I had noticed that pedal started going down further than usual. Then yesterday, it seems brakes would hardly stop car. Power assist not doing much. I did a few attempted hard stops and brakes were not too good, but passenger side did lock up and skid.

Had a look under car, and I saw fluid dripping off bottom of driver side caliper. Rim and tire wet with fluid. MC reservoir down about 1/4".

Topped up brake fluid. Put pressure on pedal and started car. Pedal goes down a long way and then when vac builds even more (but I think it should). But if I maintain pressure, it continues going down slowly even if I switch engine off.

Seems I may have two problems. Leaking caliper and maybe MC too. And/or booster?

First, I want to pull caliper and see where it is leaking (bleeder looked dry). Assuming piston seal is leaking, then what to do. Maybe get it back to Midland Caliper and have them re-do it. Or maybe buy another.

If I buy a replacement ATE for driver side, any need to do both calipers considering everything else is new?

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Graham
85 300D,72 350SL, 98 E320, Outback 2.5

Master cylinder is hopefully still good. You also have air in your system as well I suspect now. Thanks for mentioning your experiences so far with the reconditioned calipers.

I have perhaps eight I want to do or have done. I do want new or replated pistons though. Hard to avoid rust on them developing in this salt belt. You might want to visually look to see if the seal is torn or looks abnormal when you get the caliper off.

I removed the caliper this afternoon. There is nothing obviously wrong. But, it has been leaking between the piston and seal just on the inboard side where the brake fluid connections are. On that side pads, rotor and wheel are covered in fluid!

I will call the guy that did the rebuild although not sure what he can do. He didn't change the pistons but did do the seal replacement. The calipers weren't leaking before the rebuild, but seals looked pretty bad and heat shield had gone. I would like to check for scoring, but don't want to touch it until I hear what he suggests.

I will probably buy a single reman caliper and hope the other side remains good. A brand new one would be better, but then I should probably do both sides? Expensive.

(BTW: That special little vice grip for flare nuts came in useful today!)

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Graham
85 300D,72 350SL, 98 E320, Outback 2.5

Spoke to Midland Caliper. They say to just bring caliper in and they will fix it. He doesn't think pistons were bad and says no problem to fix!

Anyway, I have someone going that way early next week, so will give this a try as first step. If the caliper leaks again, I will replace.

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Graham
85 300D,72 350SL, 98 E320, Outback 2.5

The pitting in the Caliper Bodies in a place to close to the Piston Seal is more likely then the Piston having an issue.
Taking a cut/piece out of the O-ring when inserting the Caliper Piston can of course also cause a leak.

All re-builders have a similar problem in that as time goes on the choice of good re-buildable cores diminishes. Eventually they are re-building Cores that they would have previously rejected and hope that they do not come back under Warranty.

You might ask them to show you what they think the Cause was.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

Yes, I would like to know the cause of the leak. What I can see of the pistons looks good and the rebuilder was adamant that pistons were not the cause of the leak.

The calipers are the originals off my car - first time rebuilt. Your idea that o-rings got pinched could be spot on. But the caliper did work for a couple of months. Hope they have a way to pressure test.

Back to driving the SL until I get this sorted!

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Graham
85 300D,72 350SL, 98 E320, Outback 2.5

Could I jumpin currently having caliper problems myself. Was reading yesterday on this site a member was talking about a place call Phoenix Caliper or rebuilder in Chicago area. He claims they have fair prices and do great work. I know your in Canada but might help.

As mentioned earlier I have perhaps eight calipers I will have to do. I priced the seal kits on fastlane and they are pretty reasonable.

Do not see new pistons for sale anywhere though yet for these calipers. Although I feel I might be able to source then from a rebuilder at a decent price if a few ae needed in my opinion. So I will remove all the pistons from those calipers. Clean and inspect them.

If I feel the pistons are still decent or replacements available I will order the reconditioning kits. About ten to fifteen dollars a kit for each caliper depending on front or back primarily. The two different brands ate or bendix use different kits but their price is similar.

With that many to do, you will be an expert by the time you are finished! I think I was quoted about $25 locally for kits. Cheaper on line, but not with freight on just two kits.

You may have seen this - it is good!

Resealing w123/126 calipers

Hoping my niece will delivery my repaired caliper on monday.

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Graham
85 300D,72 350SL, 98 E320, Outback 2.5

Well, I got my caliper back from Midland Caliper. They couldn't see anything wrong with caliper. But they rebuilt it again with new seals etc. (at no cost to me). I have it back on car and so far brakes seem fine. Bit of a puzzle, but we will see how it goes. MC etc seems OK so far.

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Graham
85 300D,72 350SL, 98 E320, Outback 2.5

Shipping costs of parts has increased over the years. Hopefully a few seal kits could still be put into a bubble envelop and mailed first class to Canada. Any other method other than usps first class as you say pretty much forget it.

I used to buy a fair amount of parts and things on the American ebay site. With shipping costs to Canada today it is generally no longer practical. I also loath it when ebay states we will collect the import tax etc . Plus a heavy handling charge in the process to do it.

When the reality is with the exception of two items arriving in Canada from the states. There were absolutely no additional charges. This was on hundreds of items. Customs just lets them through with usps first class.

Now I get a lot of small things very cheap from China usually with postage included by the vendor. For a simple example you can get five fuel filters for small engines for a dollar delivered from China. Or see the same filter at a local parts place for 5-7 dollars usually. Same identical filter.

Things of a small nature I just give away the excess quantity beyond my needs. Like ebay has gone so will Chinese sellers go eventually though.

The good times on the American ebay site are over for a long time now for Canadians or at least compared to what they were. With rare exceptions I suppose still.

Or your phone packs die out on certain phones. Common issue. Usually I can get them up and running for a buck or two delivered from China with quite often batteries of much greater internal capacity as well. My wife the heavy user type has told me the phones last about two to three times longer as an additional benefit before having to recharge. Total lifespan seems at least equal the original battery pack overall so far.

If you are driving this car in the Canadian winters. I do not know if you read my post some time ago. Dab a little grease on the bleeder screw. Select something like a piece of fuel hose size that fits snuggly over the bleeder screw. Cut a small piece and slide it over and put a small dab of grease on the remaining hole as well. .

Next time say in a year or two you have to loosen the bleeder screws for any reason. Instead of rusted bad they will be the same as when you first tightened them down. If a guy in eastern Canada does not own a torch set. You are going to break some of them off at times otherwise. That is a real pain in the posterior when it occurs.

60 is Hamilton seems good, Where is this store ?

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1992 300d