Xantia Front Brake Caliper disassemby problem

awg2 · Post by **awg2** » 03 Apr 2006, 18:23

The hard steel "split pin" has snapped flush with the locking pin in the caliper. As the locking pin also seems to be immune to persuasion to move at all I guess that I will need to cut it. Does anyone know if it is hardened? I am hoping not as access is limited.

Also the outside pad is completely worn and the inboard one seems almost 100% present. I suppose it indicates a sticky caliper. Is this common?

Dave Burns · Post by **Dave Burns** » 03 Apr 2006, 21:14

What are you trying to persuade it with, you need a good parallel punch and a 2Lb hammer, if you are going at it with a 6 inch nail for your punch you wont make much of an impression on it, and yes they allways seem pretty bloody hard to me.

Dave

andmcit · Post by **andmcit** » 03 Apr 2006, 21:36

Had this the other night on mine! Bloody useless lock pin snaps if you stare at it hard. If the pin truly is flush with the main spindle shaft your only course of action is to drive it out from the caliper and then drill or drift the old remants out whilst holding the pin in a vice.

As Dave says, you'll really need to get a good welly on the end to drive it through. 'Spring' the main hub carrier holding the pads by striking a few blows on it to shock through the pin etc adding copious amounts of wd40/penetrating oil.

The old pin remnant did eventually come out of the main spindle shaft for me after a bit of faffing around. I recon it's harder than almost any other part on the car including the caliper so don't worry about giving it some "attention" - just dont burr the end of the spindle pin over as it'll never go through the hub - then you'll be in trouble...

Have "fun"!

Andrew

Kowalski · Post by **Kowalski** » 03 Apr 2006, 22:43

I discovered something interesting about that locking pin on the caliper. There is a stainless steel clip that it goes through (the clip that holds the pad wear sensor wire). This clip gets a load of corrosion behind it and gets tight on the pin. I found that removing it (mine were both nicely rusted in place), cleaning the slot it comes out of and the pin itself makes it a lot easier to get that bottom pin in and out. It also makes the caliper more free to slide.

The spring clips on my '97 appear to be the original spring clips, they're dead easy to get in and out and I haven't had problems with them sticking. The '94 has lost these and had them replaced with split pins which are forever rusting in and snapping off.

I could rant about how bad the design of the front Xantia calipers are in terms of them sticking on their slides...