have to rebuild front brakes after one siezed. Opinions?

[amblerman]

Amazing results. How did you clean the calipers that well without a sandblasting cabinet? Granted, I'm used to seeing New England calipers "pulled from the lake", as people say. After getting my new four calipers stripped and powder coated, I intend to try and rehabilitate my current ones as spares, like you did.

Thanks.
I initially used electrolysis to help remove grime, previous coating (if any) and rust.

elect.png (2.82 MiB) Viewed 384 times

after being in there for an hour or so, I'd remove it, rinse it in clean water and scrub with a cheap metal brush (tooth brush sized.

After a while I realized that the electrolysis had done its de-rusting job and was now just laying down more black residue.

a little CLR (Calcium/LIme/Rust cleaner) seemed to remove a lot of the black residue. It could have just been elbow grease with the brush.

Then I chucked various sizes of wire wheels into a drill and that got most of the caliper back to bright shiny metal. I only had to clean up some nooks and crannies with the cheap wire brush by hand.

In fact, cleaning the calipers and bracket took most of the time on the job. Rebuilding the calipers and re-assembly was quick.


Also I know what you mean by the seal being tricky to get in the groove. The fact that the seal has many folds allows it to hide whether or not it is in the groove . I had to use a pick to pop it in the groove and then rotate piston to expose a fresh part that needed seating.


It was a satisfying project

[amblerman]

btw. I don't have a before/after electrolysis picture of my calipers, but here is one of the dust shields.

Top is showing an after photo with some of the black residue that the process lays down. That comes off with scrubbing.
Below is the before showing the rust.

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after cleaning up I used POR-15 to paint. POR-15 is some sort of super tough anti rust paint. I don't know the chemistry of it but it's not your typical paint.

dust2.png (617.27 KiB) Viewed 380 times

[amblerman]

Oh. and btw. The dust shields on our cars are about 100x more durable than on any other car I've ever owned.

And the best part is they are removable with 3 bolts instead of being pressed on with the hub so you can remove them and restore/replace them with minimal effort. Probably not required, but a nice option

[foggydogg]

I have one Volvo left out of four P80s that don’t have FreeCP calipers on all corners so I don’t think I’ll be rebuilding too much. I finally learned a system to keep on honest footing with FCP by putting my order numbers into the car logbook and even the maintenamce record here. A couple of times I’ve worn out a part on more than one car, in which case I’ve written them a note asking if they will honor a replacement, and the answer has always been yes

A Most Excellent travelling companion, still along for the ride. The only thing missing is a few stray hairs on the seat.

[850oldschool]

POR15 is a moisture cured urethane. It gets hard and brittle like glass, but some people get great results with it. Let us know how it holds up.

I'm curious why you wouldn't have those parts sandblasted to give a toothy surface for the coatings.

[abscate]

I have one Volvo left out of four P80s that don’t have FreeCP calipers on all corners so I don’t think I’ll be rebuilding too much. I finally learned a system to keep on honest footing with FCP by putting my order numbers into the car logbook and even the maintenamce record here. A couple of times I’ve worn out a part on more than one car, in which case I’ve written them a note asking if they will honor a replacement, and the answer has always been yes

A Most Excellent travelling companion, still along for the ride. The only thing missing is a few stray hairs on the seat.

I bet you still find some HuskyGlitter in DE from past visits...

My new avatar is making me smile again..

[amblerman]

POR15 is a moisture cured urethane. It gets hard and brittle like glass, but some people get great results with it. Let us know how it holds up.

I'm curious why you wouldn't have those parts sandblasted to give a toothy surface for the coatings.

Ah right. Moisture cure urethane. That's right. Thanks
and to clarify, only the dust shields were Por-15. The calipers and brackets were painted in G2 caliper paint which is a 2 part epoxy paint. I used Por-15 on the dust shields only because i had some left over from another project.

I suppose the only reason I didn't have them sand blasted was that would requirement taking them somewhere (I don't have a sand blasting cabinet myself) and I had all the supplies at home for the techniques I used.