Cleaned up a pair of front calipers from a 1994 XJ a little more. BTW, if you have plenty of time on your hands just leaving them in a tub of water with Dawn for a couple of weeks does all the hard work for you.

Got the pads off and here are the pistons. Rubbed down some exposed spots with a Scotchbrite and no metal appeared. Took a small file to the chamfered edge and same thing. They appear to be brown phenolic. One of them appears to have cracks running parallel to the long axis of the pad (can barely see one in lower pic).





Only place I've seen that shows their pistons as steel in O'Reilly BrakeBest brand, and it is a little suspect because it is a phenolic piston in the picture and about the same price of others for phenolic.

Anybody know a source for steel? Going to order the BrakeBest and see what shows up.

Where do these spring clips go? None were on this set of calipers

 

You looking for just a steel piston or a caliper with a steel piston?
I can't find any steel pistons on the Napa website but betting they could be had.
As far as calipers go:

https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/SEBS...ndex=Universal

https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/SEBS...ndex=Universal

 

Was looking for just the steel pistons. I have everything else, or it is on the way.

 

And this is the O'Reilly version of "Steel". Several days ago I asked on their chat feature what they were actually made of the material described. The response was "the description says steel." Well no kidding. In reality they are plastic.




Not sure who they think they are fooling. I did a couple of rounds with customer service who claimed "that is the manufacturer's description." Well guess what? YOUR website is parroting false information and it is your responsibility to police your suppliers.

They offered to sell me some calipers with steel pistons at regular price, with a $29 core charge, and a $20 store gift certificate.

My counter offer was they take my calipers that I wanted to rebuild in exchange for their steel piston ones and they can have the plastic pucks back too. Along with the gift certificate.