These pins (two per caliper) are used to hold a spring clip which in turn retains the pads and stops them from popping out of the top of the caliper. These pins mount into the caliper body and in an ideal world would be liberally greased to protect them from water, road crap and salt. Unfortunately any application of grease is liable to find its way either onto the pads (a definite no-no) or the piston seals (also a no-no, unless you're using special 'seal-friendly' grease).
I believe the general plan is to leave them unlubricated; which means that they are prone to corrosion, especially after a winter like we've just had (and are still having). I've pulled some pins out of a set of calipers which have never been used on the road for most of the bike's life and have mainly been used on track days, and they are still quite corroded. I certainly wouldn't want to re-use them, and the bike they came out of has done less than 5,000 miles.
This got me thinking, and my thoughts turned to getting some pins made out of stainless steel and, in particular, marine grade stainless; also known as A4 or 316 stainless steel. I've just approached a local engineering firm with a technical drawing of said items and asked them for a quotation for quantities of 40, 100 and 200. This equates to sets of 10, 25 and 50 when used for a standard twin-caliper setup. Note that these pins will fit both radial and non-radial 4-pad calipers as originally fitted to RSV Milles etc. in the last 7 or 8 years.
If I was able to make these available to forum members at a sensible price (i.e. less than £20 per set of 4, and hopefully less than that), how many people might be interested? It all depends on the price I get back from the engineering company, of course. A diagram of what the pin looks like is (or should be) displayed below...
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