I'm getting ready to do the front/rear pads, front rotors, and a fluid flush on my '87 300E. In going through the Shopforum posts and the manual, I had a couple of questions come up:

1. On the front calipers, there are a bunch of self-locking bolts that secure the pads and the calipers. The pad kit doesn't come with replacements. Is it okay to reuse the bolts, and just put thread-lock compound on them?

2. Should I flush the brake fluid before doing the pads and rotors, or do it after?

3. What do you guys do with used brake fluid anyways? The local parts stores only recycle engine oil.

4. The manual doesn't mention using brake pad paste on the early 300E brakes, only the later ones. Should I just use some anyways?

Any other tips for a first-timer? I hear the caliper bolts are a real bear to break loose.

Thanks,
Anthony

arent any bolts to remove in pad replacement. only if doing calipers or rotors. flush before or after i dont see much difference. i just put the old fluid in a brake fluid container and send it to the landfill. dont know if that is legal or not, but it is gone.

tom w

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Get a list of all the torque specifications. caliper mounting bolts shouldn't be too difficult if the car is properly supported.

I your doing pads and rotors, when you press the caliper piston back in to make room for the new pads, you can open up the bleeder screw at that time to release brake fluid/pressure, and at that time bleed the line since your there with the wheel off.

With the newer cars caliper bolts can only be torqued once - so I would buy new caliper bolts for your car - also a new rotor locating screw which I assume your car takes.

Many districts throughout the country have hazardous disposal fluid locations - usually a local government web site will have info. I never liked to dispose of hazardous liquids at the landfill.

Brake paste - made for brakes - applied to hub and mounting surfaces is good procedure.

Don't clean pads or rotors with brake fluid.

Brake in the new pads by making 30 mild stops spaced two minutes apart form 30mph.

have you viewed the DIY section at the top of Shopforum section?

Some parts stores take only motor oil, others take any petroleum based fluid, which they have to pay a little more to have picked up. Shop around and you might find someone who will take brake fluid.

and emphasize.

you dont need to remove any bolts to change pads!!!!!!!!

tom w

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the responses. Tom: re the bolts, at least on my car, the front calipers are different. Instead of being held in by pins and a spring clip, the piston housing is held in by a bolt, and swings up for pad removal. The rear calipers are like the ones in the MBShop DIY, but the front ones aren't.

I don't have my digital camera with me, but when I get around to doing these I'll try to remember to take pictures.

Anthony

yeah the new style brakes. i have done them but can't remember enough to be helpful.

tom w

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

The good brands of pads come with new bolts with encapsulated loctite already on them.

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Kent Christensen
Albuquerque
'07 GL320CDI, '10 CL550. '01 Porsche Boxster
Two BMW motorcycles

Okay, so it looks like of the pad kits available on Fastlane, the only ones that come with replacement bolts are the Lucas, Jurid, and TRW kits. Not the Textar ones I was planning to buy. The MB kit at the dealer contains the bolts, which I may get, but they are all out of the bolts that secure the caliper to the hub. The parts guy didn't think that they went through those bolts very quickly, which makes me wonder if people just reuse them when doing rotors? Has anyone here done that?

As for the old brake fluid, you dont really have much to dispose of. Whenever I do mine, I just put it in the old oil that I take to the auto store

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1990 300TE....all comments are about this car...in case I forget in the actual post

Well, just a follow-up on some of my questions.

-Bought the Mercedes kit from the dealer, which were basically Textar branded pads with the star and a replacement caliper bolt.

-Ironically, found a bunch of answers to my question about re-using the caliper bolts when I was searching for posts on how to actually remove the bolts. The consensus seems to be yes, you can re-use them.

-I ended up using some Mercedes paste, which basically looks like anti-seize, on the pads.

-After spending two days on the big caliper bolts, eventually just bought myself a 4 foot piece of 1" dia steel pipe. "Wow." Don't know why I didn't get one of those a long long time ago.

-Used a 6" C-clamp to push the piston back in, with the bleeder screw open. Also "wow." So much easier than trying to push them in by hand or screwdriver.

-The set screw that comes with the Brembo rotors doesn't fit the hole in the stock hub. So I re-used the old ones.

-Never did figure out what to do with old brake fluid. Maybe I will call up the Waste Board or the county to see what they think.

Thanks all,
Anthony

Count on about 30-40 minutes if this is the first brake job you have done. I did front and rear pads in about 20 min. Use a power bleeder, discard the old fluid in drain. It mixes with water (as opposed to turning into radio-active acid that will cause global warming and terrorist attacks).

We are soon going to replace the rear brake pads on my 85', but do not recall ever having to use a "bleeder" on any of the cars that we have replaced rear brake pads on before and the brakes have always worked perfectly. Is this just another one of those "Mercedes" things?

Thanks.

You MUST use a power bleeder to bleed Mercedes brakes. My manual states that you set the power bleeder to 2.0 bar, which is 30psi!!! Pretty scary pressure. When I did mine, I kept it around 20psi, and it worked great. Would have been faster at 30psi...hehe.

You said you never needed to bleed when changing pads. When you force the piston back, and let off on the bleeder to relieve pressure, you most likely will not introduce air into the system. Replace pads, top off the reservoire, your good to go. But if you want to bleed your system, or change out the fluid, you need a power bleeder, which you can make yourself.

DO NOT USE THE "PUMP THE BRAKE PEDAL" METHOD. We all used to do this. The problem is that by its nature, you have to push the pedal further down than it normally goes. Since the brake pedal never goes down this far normally, you risk having pits or something on the piston shaft that will damage the seal. Make sense?

Also, you cannot vacuum the brakes either. I found this out the hard way with lots of wasted time. The front brakes vacuumed fine, but the rear brakes...no such luck. This was before my manual, and reading about power bleeding. The vacuum worked great for getting all that old crappy brake fluid out of the reservoire prior to power bleeding.

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1990 300TE....all comments are about this car...in case I forget in the actual post

It's a good idea to replace the brake fluid. That said, I have never replaced the fluid in my 28 year old Blazer. I have not had any problems. But a Mercedes is a Mercedes. And yes, this might well be a "Mercedes thing". Your call. With a power bleeder only one person is required to do the job. Keep in mind, it is a simple, straight order job. Only MB can make it as complicated as, say the middle east situation. Perhaps the Chrysler folks will help in this area as they slowly intigrate their cars/parts into a formerly pretty nice product. For real confusion, buy a BMW.