Lubing caliper slides/"ears"?

[Klutch9]

I'm doing rotors and pads on the Fusion next week. I always clean and lube the slide pins with synthetic moly grease with every brake job. However, many people recommend lubing the slides and/or "ears" of the pads, where they make contact with the smooth portion of the caliper bracket. I'm thinking that here might not be the best place for lube, since it's exposed to the elements and things like dirt, salt, etc can make its way into the lube and actually make it counterproductive. Sealed areas like slide pins, and non-friction areas like the rear of pads (for vibration dampening) aren't really affected by dirt and other debris, but the slide brackets are. What do you all do? Brakes will be liberally sprayed with some brake clean semi-annually when the winter tires go on/off.

 

[Falken]

Scrub off the discoloration and the caked on brake dust with a wire brush, then carefully pry the chrome plated Abutment Clips off (they guide the pad "ears").

Scrub the rust off the Caliper Bracket where the Abutment Clips snap in. Then put anti-seize in the channel where the clips snap into the Caliper Bracket.

This keeps rust from building under the Clips, causing them to bind and trap the pad.

You can put a bit of anti-seize on the Clips where they contact the pads, but not much.

This is only to help the bedding process by smoothing out the brake operation, but don't expect the anti-seize or silicone lube to stay there for very long.

 

[gofastman]

The idea Is just to prevent significant corrosion from forming. It washes off pretty quickly in the sense that it doesn't look like a film is still there, but it's very difficult to remove completely, especially silicone lubes, you can ask any auto body guy lol.
The trick is to use it sparingly on the pad ears.
I like the purple extreme lube from permatex for the pad "ears" and the back side. The best lube I have found for slide pins was the red label permatex silicone lube that they discontinued. Sil-Glide is my second choice. The green permatex lube is [censored].

 

[buck91]

I got falken's route ex rot I use silicone grease (motorcraft xg3a) behind the abutment clips and am currently trying out jetlube mp-50 moly paste on the outside of the sliders.

 

[michaelluscher]

I use silicone on the pins, and Sil-Glyde on the ears/tabs

 

[HangFire]

Originally Posted By: Klutch9
I'm doing rotors and pads on the Fusion next week. I always clean and lube the slide pins with synthetic moly grease with every brake job. However, many people recommend lubing the slides and/or "ears" of the pads, where they make contact with the smooth portion of the caliper bracket. I'm thinking that here might not be the best place for lube, since it's exposed to the elements and things like dirt, salt, etc can make its way into the lube and actually make it counterproductive. Sealed areas like slide pins, and non-friction areas like the rear of pads (for vibration dampening) aren't really affected by dirt and other debris, but the slide brackets are. What do you all do? Brakes will be liberally sprayed with some brake clean semi-annually when the winter tires go on/off.


I lube the pad ears, especially after losing a set of pads due to one catching and tilting where the pad ear runs along the track.

Now that I'm aware of the problem, I re-lube them on the occasional tire rotation or Winter tire exchange (depending on the vehicle). For my Dodge truck I don't even have to pull the caliper, I found I can pry them up gently and use a small flat screwdriver to get the grain of rice sized lube under there.