Caliper repair kit

[flygirl757]

Hi Guys (again - lol)
Citroen Xantia 1.9 TD
Meant to ask this question with my my post of yesterday. Changing a front caliper. Anybody know the odds of a repair kit working or are we better just fitting a used repalcement from a breaker's yard? The repair kits seem to be half the price of used calipers off Ebay (£10 as opposed to about £25+). Thanks in advance. Michy

[Northern_Mike]

I've used repair kits before - never on a Xantia, and as long as you fit them properly, they've been fine (new pistons, seals, slider pins etc). Breaker calipers are often a false economy because they can be just as bad, or worse as the ones you just took off.

What makes you think it needs a repair kit? Bear in mind you must WIND the pistons back on the Xantia front calipers, not just push them back like you can on most front calipers. The handbrake operates on the front. I thought I'd just mention that in case you thought they were jammed and the calipers were seized up

[addo]

I'm not a big fan of putting used parts straight on. Sometimes they're good starting points to rebuild and then swap over.

With calipers generally, the sliding pins are crucial items - the bores they slide in need to be cleaned meticulously, and the pins also - then a suitable high temp grease used - Wurth CU800 is available in little tubes and works extremely well for this application.

[Xantianut]

Ay up!

I used to rebuild calipers for a garage in Leeds after we had problems with professional rebuilds. It's not difficult. You will need air pressure to eject the old piston and a hook-like tool to remove the seals. Reassemble with loads of LHM as a lubricant and Bob's yer uncle. As RM says, make sure that you wind the pistons back in as this garage used to get a lot of work from a local Kwik-Fit because they had a "mechanic" who would insist on fitting front pads with a G-cramp! If you can't afford a proper wind-back tool, then Machine Mart sell a cheap but rather nice set of "Hammer Through" Engineers Screwdrivers which includes two with a shaft that fits perfectly in the slots in the piston.

As always, please keep us informed and, if you get stuck, PM me.

One more thing - as for the handbrake mech, clean and lube it and see what happens but if that's seized (unusual) then that does need a pro rebuild because special tools are needed to reassemble it.

[flygirl757]

Thanks everybody. You have all been most kind. I'll let you know how we get on (well, my bf really as he will be doing the nasty dirty bits - which is all of it really. I'll keep him supplied with elatoplast and coffee and encourage him to greater efforts - lol). Thank you for the very kind offer to PM you if we get stuck, Xantianut. All be good, Michy x