w124 front brake imbalance MOT fail

[millo777]

New calipers arrived this morning from gsf (ordered friday), and they are original MB calipers made by ATE that have been rebuilt. The piston boots are ATE parts as well which bodes well.

At £96 each plus a £30 refund on each when I take the old ones back I'm pretty happy, and very pleased I didn't blow a bag of sand of brand new ones from the main dealer.

If anybody else is buying calipers from gsf, bear in mind they don't come with pad retention pins or anti-rattle springs so you need to order a brake pad fitting kit as well at £12.60 (Pagid) before discount form ECP. Annoyingly they also don't come with mounting bolts. Another trip to the parts counter....

I'm now thinking I may as well re-pack the bearings while it's all apart, so I'll probably leave it all until the weekend and get some of that lovely bright green MB bearing grease and caliper bolts from the stealer.

 

[grober]

If the caliper mounting bolts are in good nick you can easily reuse them with some good thread locker compound. such as Loctite 270 Loctite 270 High Strength Threadlocker - Henkel

 

[millo777]

Thanks Graeme. I wasn't sure if regular threadlock would be strong enough, hence every workshop manual recommending new bolts with the stuff pre applied. I've got some bond loc somewhere, so I'll brush off the bolts and use that. Another £10 saved!

 

[spike60]

Thanks Graeme. I wasn't sure if regular threadlock would be strong enough, hence every workshop manual recommending new bolts with the stuff pre applied. I've got some bond loc somewhere, so I'll brush off the bolts and use that. Another £10 saved!

Loctite thread lock comes in a few grades, from memory Studlock (243?) being the highest we regularly use though I don't think we are technical enough for the more subtle grades!

 

[millo777]

Finally got around to attempting to fit the calipers today, and guess what, there are not exactly the same as the ones currently on the car. The discs are too wide.

There are 2 options for discs and pads on ECP 25mm wide discs and 16mm pads, or 22mm discs and 17.5mm pads. I measured my old discs at 24mm, and on that basis ordered the 25mm option. So naturally, the rebuilt calipers turned out to want the other option, and the 25mm discs simply won't fit. Of course I didn't notice this until the discs and pads were out of the their packaging....

It seems obvious to check the calipers when they arrived, but being busy with other things it never even entered my head. A £70 mistake I won't make again!

 

[Paul64]

I had what I thought was a sticking caliper on my W124 estate with the floating calipers.
Ordered seal kits from MB - 8 euro a side - and took a few hours this afternoon to rebuild them.
The side that was sticking was indeed pretty grotty - fortunately, the pistons cleaned up OK with a brass brush and although the dust seals were a bit of a swine to fit (before or after the piston??), everything went back together OK and bled out no problem.
Testing showed that the same caliper was sticking a little and the only think I can think of would be a partially collapsed flexible hose - is this a common problem I wonder? Is there something else in the ABS which would keep pressure partially on the caliper once the brake pedal is released??
I'll get a pair of hoses on Monday and change them to start with - any ideas??

Thanks

Paul

 

[grober]

Are you sure the piston is sticking and not the caliper pins [ they can get bent!]

 

[Paul64]

Hi Graeme,

I checked the pins and cleaned/lubed them up before assembly - all smooth in action... I think I'll change the pipes anyway and see if there's any improvement.

P

 

[grober]

The flexibles can collapse so worth a try.

 

[Paul64]

Changed the front flexibles last night, bled the brakes and all is now good. I checked the free-spinning of the wheel when I arrived at work and all was fine.
Next project, change the heater fan, repair some corrosion under the passenger floor and inner rear wheel arch, put the summer tyres back on, repair the passenger door mirror vertical electric movement, lube up the sunroof etc etc etc.... Luckily, the sun's arrived!

Paul

 

[millo777]

I should just add as a follow up to my last post that ECP did actually swap the discs I ordered even though I had opened them and even wiped the anti corrosion coating off one of them. Top marks to ECP for that.

@Paul64, glad to hear you had an easy fix with the brake hoses. re the heater fan, mine was squealing like a banshee for ages, but it only about an hour all told to remove it and lube the bearings (squirt of aerosol lithium grease)and re-install and it's now silent again. If yours is kaput however, wunderpartz have a Febi one for AC cars on ebay for £60 which seems like a good deal and Franey is a good guy to deal with.

 

[grober]

The mirrors have 2 adjustment motors that essentially screw in and out 2 little ball headed plungers which clip into sockets on the back of the mirror glass. [ the glass pivots centrally on a larger ball socket arrangement It may be one of the ball heads has popped out of the socket. A firm press in on the glass with the plunger fully extended should re-engage it. If you hear the motor running when you move the joystick vertically then it's probably ok and the problem is mechanical if not you probably need a new motor assembly.

 

[Paul64]

Hi Graeme,

Thanks for the tip - I think it's dead as it's missing the grating noise in that direction when it's asked to perform though I'll certainly give it a go. Any idea of the price for a new motor??
I have already cleaned, lubed and generally teased a bit of extra life out of the heater fan a few times now and it's beginning to smell a bit 'electrical' when it starts now so I think it's time is up.

Roll on the weekend!

Paul

 

[grober]

Around £100 new from MB try to pick one up from a breaker if you can. I would quote a part no A1248209642- BUT!! I'm not sure if this refers to the RHD or LHD version= they will be different--- be careful that any breaker doesn't offer you the passenger side motor assembly as they are different shape [ square as opposed to rectangular] altogether as you might expect.