Percy - 2003 GX Love

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Brakes Continued...

So car is off the road and poor Nadine is having to ride her bike to work this week - she's happy I'm fixing the brakes but pretty unimpressed with the bike riding.

In for a penny in for a pound - I removed the drivers side calliper and if anything it's worse than the passenger side. On Sunday I'd managed to get all but two pistons out of the two callipers. Some of the pistons were pretty badly pitted and many were sliding through rusty brake fluid.

These shots show the pitting on the side of the pistons:





Tonight I freed the remaining 2 pistons and took to the callipers with a wire brush and used a wire brush attachment on the drill to clean the piston collars of corrosion. The pistons are only $30 each from toyota but I'd rather keep my money and see how they fare after the cleaning. The pistons are soaked in WD40 and brake fluid so it'll be a while before they are prone to rust again I hope.

The calliper piston surrounds were pretty corroded so I used the drill wire brush to clean the tops of these off.

To clean up the sides of the pistons I used 1200 wet & dry paper - this didn't show any scoring and seemed to smooth off the pitting.

On the internal piston bores I used 400 wet & dry just down to the rubber seal - the lower sections of the bores were clean of rust & corrosion. It took a lot of elbow grease and some obvious build-up remains but I got the pistons moving smoothly in the bores.

Here's my two callipers ready for the new seal kits:



I've removed all the boots and seals and Toyota should have the servicing kit in for me tomorrow so I can begin to re-assemble it all. Then I can look forward to a major bleeding of the brakes. Yay.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Collected my calliper rebuild seals this afternoon from Toyota.



Here's what $130 worth of seals and gaskets looks like. And some pink stuff that I'm not really sure what to do with - lube perhaps?



[UPDATE]

Made an executive decision and decided the pink stuff was grease that went into the piston bore. I found this video that has a similar style of calliper piston with some helpful hints on how to reassemble the pistons and seals:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXcCl...eature=related

Callipers with pistons and seals fitted:



Nadine wants to know why my callipers don't look like this:

[foxclan Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close foxclan]

Great write up Mcgonical
Hope the bleeding process is a relatively easy one for you.
Cheers
Troy

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Brakes went back together well and after bleeding the entire system and taking it for a test drive I think I give myself a pass on brake maintenance. I'll need to check it all within the next 12 months to see if the pitting effected the rebuild - should I have replaced the pistons? Same for the corrosion build-up on the top of the piston bores - unlike the immaculately cleaned callipers in the photo above. It's been a great opportunity to learn about brakes, they're dirty, fiddly, hard to clean, expensive to service, fairly simple and important for stopping the car.

Nadine has thoughtfully stopped in at Toyota today and bought the rear brake seal kit. Looks like she has my worked planned out this weekend.

Here's a good shot of the gunk that had accumulated around the pistons:



Something a bit different on the rear brake rebuild was the long sleeve that fitted into the calliper - I used a wood paint brush to poke the sleeve through.

[Boyce Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Boyce]

Hi, I have been following your build with great interest. I've got a 2004 GX and have been adding bits over the past few months. When I got it, it was a complete cleanskin. Didn't even have a towbar. Now it's got a dual battery, snorkel, suspension upgrade and waiting for a bullbar in the next week or so. Have had some hassles with wheels and tyres and flares. Just one question. Have you ever had any problems with the 245 tyres and they look ok in the images, but do they stick out much from the wheel arches? Have you ever had any problems with cops? Thanks!

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Hi Boyce,

No trouble with police and they've pulled up behind at the lights a few times with no comment. The tyres are pretty even with the edge of the guards - this does mean you get stone impacts on outer edge of the guards in the wheel arches. I have thought of adding some flexi-flares to help limit the damage but I think they'll make things worse by allowing water and dirt to abrade and rust - better to just repaint the area periodically I recon.

The Cooper S/T tyres in 245 are still going strong. We did about 40,000 km on our trip around Australia on some long dirt & stoney roads. They chipped up pretty badly on the trip but not one puncture. I recall chatting with someone that did 2 Tyres on just the one road (Lawn Hill to Mt Isa). I'd love to change over to the ST Maxx but they're not doing them in the 245 yet. The 245s look right on the car I think - we're very focused on touring rather than big mud driving otherwise I'd probably go the flexi-flares and bigger tyres.

[samo Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close samo]

hey mcgonical have done about 70k with 265s with no flares and i have had no trouble with that law, have done quiet a few kms on dirt roads and have had no chips on the guards, my st are near the end of their life, probably about 10 k left andi willbe going to the st maxx formy next choice. cheers samo

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Hi Samo, we're planning a trip mid-year that will probably finish off my S/Ts, I'd love to see a photo of the ST Maxx on your rig when you get them. I'm really happy with the wear I get from the coopers but the chipping of the STs is annoying. They say the new Maxx version fixes this and the reports seem positive.

[Boyce Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Boyce]

Thanks mcgonical, we are a few weeks away from heading off on a trip to the Kimberley area and I think at this stage I'll just take a punt on the standard Dunlop ATR's and standard rims. We are towing a Kimberly Kamper that has 265/65/17's on it. Would have like to have matched up, but might get to this later when the tyres are worn, or earlier if there are problems on the trip. I has some after-market flares fitted but the actual fit of these was terrible, sticking way out from the body. They have been removed and the car is in the process of being put back together now, with holes filled and repaint! I wouldn't recommend after-market flares to anyone with a 120 series Prado. So, I might go the 245's or put on some 265's with the flexl flares. Our main focus is touring as well. Thanks again for your comments

[samo Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close samo]

when i get them i will put a few photos mcgonical, but i have also go a few chips in mine as well, it is annoying but not much i can do about it. cheers samo

[piecrust Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close piecrust]

Hey Mate
loving the tread good to hear some one getting out there and using their car. i also want to do some touring got some sweet new boots going one Tuesday cant wait to pile on the kms

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

It's been way too long since we were touring, just some local camping renting a TVan this year. We plan to take 4 weeks and get away in June / July - escape the Canberra winter. Our new TVan is here early next month so can't wait to collect it and get ready to go. Seems I've been doing a lot of maintenance on the Prado in this thread lately so I thought I'd throw up some photos to show the reason for all the work...

Beside the Ghan




Cape York- Palm Creek



Cape York OTT Crossing



Cape York OTT

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

More photos from our lap in 2010

Eli Creek Fraser Island



Kakadu



Karunji Track Kimberly WA



Kimberly Near Home Valley Station WA

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Crossing the Pentacost WA



Morton Island



Stuck - MortonIsland



Free camping north of Yardie Creek WA

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Heading back out to the shed now to find out what's going clunk when I take off or turn - bit of a worry. I've got some RDA rotors coming this week so I'll take some photos of the fitment of these when they arrive, should be pretty straight forward.