Is my caliper carrier fucked?

[stevo as b4]

Hi,

I've just had some powder coating done on a few tatty bits of my KMX. I had the front caliper carrier with the slider pins blasted and powder coated. I realise now this might have been a bit of a mistake, as the slider pins have now got a rough blasted finish to them. I should have just had it chemically stripped and coated I guess.

Will the carrier still be ok to use once reassembled and greased up, or do the slider pins really need to be smooth/polished as I suspect? I don't want to re-assemble the brake until I know 100% if it's going to work or not?

Would I be better off just sourcing a second hand caliper carrier? I think the old one was probably cleaned up before the re-build so the pins were probably sanded with emery then. I doubt there's enough material on them now to get back a smooth finish.

A new carrier is nearly £100 so that's not going to happen if I can help it.

[Islander]

I'd say they need to be smooth to avoid sticking. If they've been blasted then you'll already have lost some material from them anyway so trying to smooth them off again is likely to leave you with an overly slack fit.

Second hand carrier time methinks.

[stevo as b4]

This I feared. So even if the pins are a fraction smaller in diameter the roughness of the shot blasted surface will definitely prevent the caliper sliding properly?

I could try smoothing them off with emery, but I just the pins need to be a close fit inside the caliper and not sloppy?

[Llama-Farmer]

Had someone with a car come to me to fix to sticky calipers less than a week after he refitted them after powder coating.

I replaced the pins with new ones and that sorted the problem. Might be easiest/quickest to just do that.

[Pete.]

The pins should be a close fit, but if you clean them up and grease them well you'll get a good enough operation to give you time to find replacements. It's no different to pins that have been left un-greased and gone rusty.
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a.k.a 'Geri'

132.9mph off and walked away. Gear is good, gear is good, gear is very very good

[stevo as b4]

Cheers for the advice guys!

I'll clean them up with some 240grit and oil and see how smooth I can get them without taking off too much material.

The sliding pins are integral with the bracket and as such cannot be replaced (stupid?). And they are not 100% round, they have 2machined flats on them so are the profile of a running track sort of.

I've just remembered I've got the front brake assembly still complete on my 200, so I could strip and rape it for it's brake carrier, assuming it's not totally worn out?

Am pretty pissed off that I had a perfectly serviceable part powder coated and ruined at the same time.

If cleaning up the original doesn't look viable, or the one off my 200cc is also fucked, then I might as well wait a month and spend a ridiculous £100 on a new carrier, as whats to say the average second hand part won't be worn out and scrap as well. If I could have removed the sliding pins I'd have just had some new ones machined up instead.

I only want to reassemble the brake once really, but will see how the fit is on my original carrier once I've smoothed the pins down with some sandpaper etc.

[Pete.]

Powder coaters are knuckle-heads. I had to bore and sleeve a rear caliper hanger because rather than mask off the bore they coated it then ran a flapwheel through it from both sides creating a double-bellmouth.
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a.k.a 'Geri'

132.9mph off and walked away. Gear is good, gear is good, gear is very very good

[mentalboy]

^^^ and with that in mind, I've always found it best to mask off anything I don't want blasted, these guys do so many varied things that they're hardly likely to know exactly what can and can't be done.
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Make mine a Corona.