Brakes and fluid - advice on bleed screws

[tommchowat]

Hey guys,

I'm lucky enough that my dad owns a garage in the South West and I'm going down to see the folks in a week so every time I'm there I get free labour. Really good guy and his apprentice work there, I've known them for years and he knows his cars.

I've gone shopping and bought front discs and pads, rear discs and pads and a lower arm. She hasn't had a brake fluid change for bloody ages so I'm gonna get that done. When I had the car in at Audi a while ago they made a comment that the bleed nipples were pretty solid. Another company that did my carbon clean said the same - though they said they didn't try as hard as they could have to unscrew them.

In case my guy needs them, I've bought some Brembo M10x1 stainless steel bleed screws. I was wondering if anyone had any advice or pointers I could give him on how best to encourage the existing ones out in case they don't want to. I trust him not to damage the calipers (if he does I'm screwed as I'm only down there for a few days). But if anyone has heard of any techniques I could pass on to him I'd appreciate it.

[mcox42]

Be VERY careful...you need to tweak your nipples regularly.

Nipples are steel and callipers are aluminium, never a good combination as they oxidise together if left untouched for a long time (same as alloy wheels and cast iron hubs). One of sheared off when it was in the garage having pads etc replaced just after I'd bought the car. It turns out that my car had only covered 8.5k over the previous 3 years, so the owner hadn't had the brakes touched in 3 years because nothing had worn low!! The garage had to drill out the remains of the nipple and replace with a brass self tapping sealing bolt as they didn't feel comfortable helicoiling in to the calliper. I will have to replace/refurb the calliper at some point, but it's holding strong at the moment.

Cheers

Martin

[tommchowat]

Thanks for that.

To replace discs and pads do you have to undo the bleed screws? If my mechanic finds that they're not moving and he doesn't want to do the brake fluid because of it, it would be unfortunate if he couldn't do the discs and pads anyway and I could get the bleed screws sorted at a later date.

[mcox42]

That sounds about right. I think you can get away with not touching the bleed nipples if your putting new disks and pads in, if memory serves me correctly, as your putting thicker materials back in (disks and pads) and therefore need less fluid. You won't however be able to do a fluid change without opening the bleed nipples.

Cheers

Martin

[tommchowat]

Okay, if worse comes to the worst I'll just get him to do discs and pads, the last thing I want is him trying to do the nipples and breaking something, as I'm only down there for a couple of days!

[skywriter]

try brakes international for ss bleed nipples

[Stew]

Just small movement back and forth they'll let go just takes a little bit off patience mine were solid

[rs user]

wont need to touch nipples doing the pads
however my pins were solid-nightmare,they were the worst i have ever encountered-i have worked on more vehicles than i care to think about
they had become part of the caliper-fused in place,again as above it hadnt had brake work for years

[rs user]

main dealers usually stock the pin and anti rattle kit -its not too expensive either,i would make sure i had these before trying to remove pads
as well as the pad replacement there are two little alloy heel plates /locating plates one bolted at each end of caliper,these generally need removing and any oxidation cleaned up as it lifts the plate making the pads stick..