This spring I decided to change my brake fluid but the bleed plug in my front left calliper snapped in half. I have a spare bleed plug from a previous service on my rear brake calipers, they look the exact same to me. I thought to carefully drill the remaining part of the plug that is stuck in the caliper and basically shred it to pieces and vacuum it out.
Could this work or is it a really bad idea? Other solutions?
Easy out should work well, I have had very good luck with a reverse twist drill bit also. Pack the flutes with a heavy grease to allow the chips to "stick"...minimizes the amount of metal shavings.
Never ever atempt to remove any rusty nut or bolt, or adjuster, without giving it some lubrication . Penetrating oil is the way to go , and if you dont have any then its time to buy a tin of spray . I use diesel , and just paint it on with a brush, leave it for a few days before you start to remove it . And as above post ,but do lubricate it first .
I'll suggest PB-blaster, spray it on, leave for 24 hours, and usually it comes out easily. If it doesn't budge at all, which rarely happens, I take it as a cue to bring out the artillery (or replace the part).
There is a but as G-AMG said. Mineral oil will destroy your brakes. It has happened to me on my W202, previous owner had the brakes serviced,a small amount of oil had gotten into the braking system (maybe was a similar situation to yours), and a few months down the round, rear calipers would seize, fronts were soon behind, master cylinder wouldn't bleed. Needless to say, new calipers in the rear, rebuilt in the front, and a new master cylinder. Luckily my ABS pump was unaffected.
So if you go this road, bleed your brakes immediately, bleed them like its the plague.
Since I found out about this forum I face my Mercedes challenges with a more positive attitude I went from "Ohhh S*%#" to "Oh well, let's take a couple of pics and post them on Benz world"
My experience as well, the forum makes everything so much easier..
One trick for your busted bolt depending on cost, (I'm assuming a new caliper is pretty pricey in Norway). I mentioned reverse twist drill bits which work very well about 80% of the time... a reverse thread tap works quite well also. Just bore a hole the proper size, tap it almost all the way through leaving a "shelf" at the bottom for the bolt to bottom out on.
If the tapping does not pull out the bolt by itself which it usually does, screwing a reverse thread bolt all the way in and turning it allows you to simply "unscrew it. Use a low grade bolt so in the unlikely event it snaps off, you can drill it out again. I've never had a broken bolt stay stuck after a reverse drilling/tapping/screwing session.... and that's counting large snapped off fasteners on bulldozers.
For what its worth, the guy in this video is from new york, thus deals with rusted bleeder screws all the time. Although not for your average shade tree mechanic, this method did work.
Long story short, I just ordered a new caliper (150 $ if somebody is curious)
I tried the penetrating oil in combination with a screw extractor kit. I was very careful and did that over 2 days. The bleeder didn't move one bit. Yesterday I decided to make it or break it. I used tons of penetrating oil and reverse twist drill bits. Again the bleeder didn't move and the hole I created just kept getting bigger. After a good 3 hours I finally gave up. Out of curiosity i dug in the side of the bleeder with a chisel. I could see that the plug was rusted 3/4 of an inch inside the calliper. I guess this was a tough one.
I didn't try the warming up method because I do not have a torch. I guess that's the next toy on the shopping list.
Thanks for the help anyway, it was a fun battle even though I lost it.
Sometimes that's the best solution, especially when you are doing it yourself. It's cheaper than buying a torch.
But, as Eric O said in the comments in his video, living in New York, you have to deal with rust so much that if you replaced everything that's rusted you would never stop. I do like watching his videos, he is a great mechanic, and when it comes to rust, I've seen that guy get stuff loose that I never thought possible.
Good call, if the bleeder was that rusted, decent chance the rest of the caliper was going to bring up problems too... and I thought we had rust issues..
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