ny450

run down: 2000 ap1 with 108k. recently got it on a trade for a great deal. took it for its first "real" highway drive last night with a bunch of buddies out to a car meet about 50min away each way. got home no problem, woke up this morning and saw this:





pulled the wheel expecting to see a mess of grease all over the underside (tore a cv boot on my last car, lex is300 and had a grease mess) but was suprised to see very little underneath the car. there was a small trail on the very outer portion of the fender liner and the rest was on the side of the car. obviously the S doesnt have front axles but i could not find any traces of grease residue on any of the boots, ball joints, etc.

then i remember that just the other day when i was putting my new wheels on that my drivers side front wheel wasnt spinning as freely as it should. took the caliper off and found this:



the caliper isnt fully frozen yet, i can spin the wheel but theres definitly some resistance. will order a new caliper tonight.

now my questions is....where the f#(% did the grease come from? could the brake have heated up from the highway drive so much that the wheel bearing grease flung out? i dont know where else there is even grease on the front of the S, im new to this car all around and not a super mechanic. if that IS the case, do you think ill be ok with just fixing the brakes since this is the first time since owning the car that ive seen grease or is the bearing automatically shot? (and ive been under that wheel well ALOT lately). i couldnt feel any play when wiggling the wheel and i took it for a drive it seems fine other than the rear axle cup vibration which is a whole different task i need to do soon as well.

zeroptzero

It's probabably from another vehicle or picked up from the road. That area right there on that fender gets hit with road rash created by items that get flung off the outside tire tread surface - stones and sand, so it looks like it was flung off the outside tire surface. If it was related to other parts of the suspension or brakes it would have hit further inwards in the wheel well and you would have grease inside the barrels of the wheel.

On the caliper I would just compress it with a C-clamp or similar compression device, grease up the outsides of the pad and the circumference of the caliper piston where it contacts the in-board pad and then give it another shot and see how it works before ordering an entire caliper, they look like they are in good shape.

ny450

thanks for the quick response fusion...i honestly did consider that i picked it up on the road but i just feel like the chance of that is so slim, especially since it was raining last night. ill keep an eye out for any more grease flinging around and i will definitly try greasing the caliper up first before i replace it

zeroptzero

Check the two sliding pins that go in the caliper bracket - top and bottom, they may need grease to keep the caliper sliding properly and with a reduced chance of sticking, many people fail to maintain the sliding pins. Just keep track of which one goes where, as they are different from top to bottom, do one at a time if you decide to grease them.

ny450

cool man will definitly keep that into account as well. really appreciate the help. sure would be nice if this grease was just something random i drove through that i was stressing over..ill see if i get lucky

zeroptzero

I really think it was, I get thin strips of asphalt flung in that exact area all the time. Some members have actually built home-made mudflaps (very narrow ones) to protect the leading edge of the fender as it is prone to road junk. Check the inside barrel of your wheel for evidence of the same grease, that would be the first place it lands if it comes off the brakes or suspension.

s2000maniac

I don't think the front caliper pins are different, only the rear.

zeroptzero

Yes they are different top to bottom on the front and rear, and they are in differnt positions on the front compared to the rear. I've never figured out why and what the consequences are if you mix them up, but they are different for some reason.

s2000maniac

^^ oh man that sucks. I remember I took both out to grease them but don't remember if I put them in the right place
Is there a pic of the top and bottom pins?

zeroptzero

Yeah I know the feeling. On the front calipers the shaped pin is on the top, on the rear calipers the shaped pin is on the bottom of the brackets. The other pin is just perfectly round, the shaped pins have a groove in them and are slightly flat on the sides, if that helps. The two pins have different colous but I can't remember which is which just by colour, one is more of a brass colour and the other is more of a dull silver colour. Again I don't know why they used different shaped pins or what happens if you mix them up, I know it is easy to mix them up and not notice the difference. Hence I always recommend you pull one pin out at a time and put it back in where it came from (assuming it was in the correct position before you started, lol).