Topic: Red rubber grease, caliper pins
It seems that no auto parts store sells this, and what I've found as substitutes I'm not happy with. What I'm dealing with is a Nissan brake caliper, one of the caliper pins goes into a rubber sheath that is the entire length of the pin, and sealed at the bottom so no air gets in. The Nissan caliper rebuild kit for this one comes with a special packet of red grease, the FSM simply refers to this as rubber grease. The grease is not only safe for use on rubber parts (won't cause them to swell over time, which would be bad for the caliper pins), but also lubricates well (very good for caliper pins).
I've been using Sil-Glyde on most caliper pins with good success, it's safe for rubber parts and lubricates well on metal-metal surfaces. But on the metal-rubber surface, it seems a bit too sticky, it takes a good bit of force to move the pin in and out of the rubber tube.
I just tried some Permatex Ceramic brake grease (the purple stuff) and it seemed to slide a bit better, but I'm still not terribly happy with the amount of force needed to move the caliper pin in and out.
Nissan only sells this (when you can find it) in a 16oz jar for about $40, the description is PBC Grease (Poly Butyl Cuprysil). And unfortunately I have none so I can't easily compare how well this stuff glides compared to the two other greases I've just tried recently, so I don't know if the factory stuff would work better at this point or not.
Here is a pic of the rubber tube the caliper pin goes into:
Anyone else run into this, and know of some off the shelf product that works well with metal-rubber surfaces? The last thing I want is a dragging caliper pin.
Scuderia Ignorante - Yee-Haw, It's Lemons Texas, Feb '12 (As seen in Car & Driver), Gator-O-Rama, Sept '13