Lucas caliper piston seal replacement

[DeeTurbo]

Hi,

I'm thinking of replacing the piston seals on my front calipers tomorrow and I was wondering if it's straight forward?

Do I just undo the two 13mm bolts on the slider, move the caliper to one side away from the disc and pop out the piston, remove/replace with new seal, reassemble and then bleed the system?

Has anyone got any experience doing this and is there anything I should know before going ahead?

[John1.4]

yeah i rebuilt the lucas 266's on mine not long back, got pics on my project post,

you got it right though, remove the caliper, pop out the piston - not as easy as it sounds, they are very tight... put the seal with a bit of the grease they come with on the piston quite far down it's body so the seal sits past the base, then get the seal into the groove in the caliper, insert piston with plenty of oomph

depending on if the piston comes out easily enough you may want to run some really fine wet&dry round it to get the old crap off it, remove any rust etc, also make sure you replace both seals in each caliper, the inner ring and the dust seal

[DeeTurbo]

Thanks, I'm going to have some dinner then giving it a go.

[Ben]

I used a foot pump to get the piston out, just held the pump hose onto the brake line and it didn't require much pressure at all.

I never managed to get the pistons back in though, because after watching videos on youtube they say that the pistons should go back in easily, you shouldn't have to force them. I didn't want to force them so I left them. I'll be interested to hear how you get on.

[DeeTurbo]

What a pain in the arse this was. Yeah getting the piston back in was very difficult.

The reason I was doing them was because the brakes were dragging.

I got the piston out by just pushing the pedal till it fell out.

At first I wasn't sure if the dust seal went on after the piston went in so managed to get it in then had to get it out again to fit it. It was a pain to get the dust seal over the piston and then I had to wiggle the piston in. It took a lot of wiggling!

The first side took me two hours to get done and the other took around an hour. The n/s had grease behind the dust seal but the o/s was dry. I did the work while the calipers were still connected to the brake hose, not the best way I know. I need to redo it again with them off the car so I can wash it out and grease the pistons properly.

I also didn't bleed the rears and I do still have air in the system so need to do that tomorrow.

The car does seem to drive a little better now just got to see if it improves the MPG now to see is it was worth it.

I think I would advise others to just get a recondition calipers.

[Ben]

Well done! Could you see why they had been sticking? Any corrosion etc?

[DeeTurbo]

I think it was the seals, they had gone hard and swollen. It's loads better now with the new ones.

[devils_fuel]

Can you post a link to the seal kit as I think I may need to do mine

[DeeTurbo]

I got mine from the dealers part number 442779 and are £25.21 each side. In the kit you get the main seal, dust seal, slider seals, new nipple cap and grease.

[devils_fuel]

I got mine from the dealers part number 442779 and are £25.21 each side. In the kit you get the main seal, dust seal, slider seals, new nipple cap and grease.

Blimey that's expensive, might try and find a kit cheaper online

[Ben]

Get seal kits from big red on eBay. About £25 for everything you need (both sides)

[DeeTurbo]

Before the rebuild my MPG went down to 50 and now it's back up to 60. Really happy about that but I think there still is a bit of air in the system.

[devils_fuel]

Get seal kits from big red on eBay. About £25 for everything you need (both sides)

Will have a look, thanks